


Sometimes I ring myself, to see if I might chime

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Character Study, Cousin Incest, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Engagement, F/M, Family Drama, Father-Daughter Relationship, Female Friendship, House Arryn, House Targaryen, Jon Arryn's Daughter Lives, King's Landing, Male-Female Friendship, Mother-Son Relationship, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Pre-Canon, Present Tense, Romantic Comedy, Targaryen Incest, Teenage Drama, The Eyrie (ASoIaF), The Red Keep (ASoIaF), The Vale of Arryn, Westerosi Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25119745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "I don't believe my will's quite free/I'm half machine, at least half steam./Aquinas, call on me." - Dessa, 'Velodrome'.“I have a letter we must speak about,” he says, and after a moment’s hesitation, reads it aloud, slowly and clearly, to her.Aemma stares at him blankly, only registering that it is a letter from the King. She thinks she met the King once, when she was very small and he and his family visited. She couldn’t have been any older than four or five. It was before Prince Duncan ran off with that peasant girl and gave up his rights to the throne. Now it will go to his brother, Prince Jaehaerys. Septa says he was mad for love. Aemma can’t comprehend of such a thing, but then again, she has never fallen in love, and she certainly hopes the first man she falls for is not poor and lowborn, no matter how pretty his looks.“Aemma,” Father says, gently, “the letter is about you and Prince Maegor.”(Jon Arryn's daughter by Jeyne Royce survives. Aegon V seeks a marriage into a loyal house for his troublesome nephew. Chaos ensues.)
Relationships: Jon Arryn/Jeyne Royce, Jon Arryn/Rowena Arryn, Maegor Targaryen (Son of Aerion)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 294
Kudos: 304





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This plot was not inspired by any specific prompt but a thank you to Quiet_Shadow and AcetylCoa for putting the idea of an earlier child of Jon Arryn's surviving in my head.

245 AC - THE EYRIE

Of all her lessons with Septa Ellyn, Aemma usually likes needlework best. She has small hands and quick fingers, which everyone knows are best for sewing. Septa says she has a fine eye for patterns and colors, and that her work will someday be exquisite, if she keeps practicing. Aemma enjoys weaving, too, and one day she is going to make grand tapestries on her loom and hang them in her hall. 

Patchwork is more boring- that’s seamstress’ work, she’s an Arryn of the Vale, she will never need to mend her own clothes- but Septa says it is still an important skill for any woman to learn, and that someday she may take pride in repairing her husband’s shirts or gloves herself. Aemma doesn’t see why she would take pride in that; if he wanted someone to darn his socks, he ought to marry someone of much lower birth than she. 

But she doesn’t have a husband, so it’s just bickering between her and Septa, really. Aemma is eleven years old this year, the last of what they say will be a three year autumn. By the end of this year their household will have quit the Eyrie for the Gates of the Moon, as winter will be settling in, and it will be far too cold to stay up so high in the mountains. Aemma doesn’t mind the cold; she was born in winter, and so she is a winter child. Septa says winter children are oft solemn and grave, wise beyond their years, drawn to the moon, to prayer, to sober reflection. 

Unfortunately Aemma is not very solemn, seldom grave, too impertinent to be wise, usually asleep when the moon has risen, oft neglectful of her prayers, and the only reflection she does-

“Is in the looking glass,” Alys would say with a scoff. Alys is her aunt, the youngest sibling of Aemma’s father, Lord Jon, but only three years her elder. Four-and-ten, betrothed to a Waynwood, and none too pleased about it, for Elys, charming though he can be, stands to inherit exactly nothing. Iron Oaks will pass to Lady Anya, unless her lord father’s next child is a son, or the one after that. That’s the trouble with being an heiress. It can all be stripped away in an instant. Aemma understands well enough. She has been Father’s only child for eleven years now, but in a month’s time he will be wed again, to cousin Rowena, and everyone says she will surely give him a son, for they are both young and healthy

And Aemma will no longer stand to inherit anything, because she will just be a daughter, not an heir. 

That is why she does not like needlework very much today. They are embroidering kerchiefs for Lady Rowena. Aemma would rather be embroidering her shroud, but if she said something like that Septa would tell Father, and he would take a switch to her. He would not be happy to do it, but he would. Rowena is to be her lady mother and Aemma has been informed a thousand and one times that there will be severe consequences if she does not pay her the proper courtesies and respect. She has only been informed so many times because Septa says she is a very brazen and disobedient child whenever Rowena is brought up in conversation, and it shames her father to see her behave in such an impudent way. 

Aemma very much doubts that. Father could never be ashamed of her. For eleven years it has been just her, and him, and Lady Grandmother, and Ronnel and Alys. She is the apple of his eye, Nuncle Ron swears it, and Alys reluctantly agrees. Alys is still angry with Father for betrothing her to Elys and not a proper lord in his own right, but Father says it is a strong match and the Waynwoods must have their due, just as Ronnel will someday wed a woman of another prominent Vale house. Aemma supposes she will someday wed a Valeman herself, for she cannot see herself going anywhere else after her marriage. 

She hopes it is not Yohn. Rhea is one of her best friends, and to marry Rhea’s irksome little brother would most certainly ruin that. Yohn is eight, a most tiresome age, if you ask Aemma. Not nearly as mature and sophisticated as eleven. Besides, although Yohn is just a cousin, and people marry cousins all the time, Mother was a Royce, and it would feel odd to marry back into a house which Aemma feels she is already a part of. 

Mother’s name was Jeyne Royce, and everyone agrees she was a splendid beauty, and she wed Father when he inherited the Vale after his own father’s death. The match was arranged by Lady Grandmother, who is dying now, but who was still young enough back then. Father was only five-and-ten, and Mother eight-and-ten, and a year later they had Aemma, and Mother died in the birthing bed. There is a portrait of her hanging in the Maiden’s Tower, where Aemma’s lavish rooms are located. She had two braided buns of bronzed brown hair, arched eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a slightly upturned nose. Her lips were thin but pulled into a pretty smile, and she wore a runic necklace around her neck. 

Aemma has more of Father’s look than hers; sandy blonde hair that curls in loose waves down her back, deep blue eyes the color of the sky, and crooked teeth. But her nose is like Mother’s, and her lips are thin and her eyebrows pale and arched. Aemma likes to just look at her, sometimes, and pretend Mother’s portrait is smiling down at her, specifically. Father wanted to name her Jeyne, when she survived the birth, for her mother, but Mother and him had already agreed on Aemma for a daughter. Aemma was an Arryn who was the daughter of a Targaryen princess and became a queen. Her daughter was Rhaenyra, who no one is supposed to talk about, especially around the Targaryens, but her grandsons were kings, and the current royal line is descended through them. 

Therefore, the argument goes, Aemma is among the greatest of the Arryns, and even if House Arryn cannot boast of any Valyrian blood, House Targaryen can certainly boast of Arryn blood, which is the purest Andal blood there is. When Aemma was a child she did not understand what was meant by ‘pure’ blood, and thought there had to be some special quality to it; perhaps it came out silver or gold instead of red. But it does not. It all looks the same, blood. She’s attended enough tourneys by now to know that. 

Which is why one must be very careful about who they spill their blood before. Septa says that is an extended sort of parable which essentially means a ruler must not show weakness, and that belief in a man’s rule is just as important as the legitimacy of said rule. If the people do not believe you are worthy, it does not matter who your ancestors are or what they did. You must always, always look the part you mean to play.

Well, Rowena means to play the part of Aemma’s stepmother, but she does not look it. Rowena is a poor, distant relation; her hair is mousy brown, not blonde, and her eyes are hazel, not blue. Really, Aemma thinks, she looks no different from a washerwoman. She has only recently learned that ‘washerwoman’ is sometimes meant to mean ‘whore’, but no one knows Aemma knows that, which is what makes it so amusing to say. Rowena is only newly twenty, less than a decade Aemma’s elder, and now she will have to call her Mother, or at least Lady Rowena, and pay her all the proper respect as Father’s wife. 

Aemma has only met Rowena a few times in passing, years and years ago, and so she cannot say what she loathes so about Rowena, exactly, but knowing that she will be replacing Mother and giving Father a son is surely reason enough. That everyone expects her to smile and be happy for them just makes it all that much worse. She has always been Father’s heir. The household has always been hers. 

Aemma decides who sits where at the feasts, plans the menus with the cooks, assigns rooms, inspects the work of the servants with the steward. She knows the accounts and the stores. She knows all their household knights by name. She entertains their guests with the bells and the high harp. She leads the dancing. Aemma brings Father his meals herself if he is caught up answering correspondence and she makes sure his horses are always ready for him. She may be impertinent and vain and haughty but she is not foolish or simple-minded or incapable. 

Now she is expected to hand all that over to Rowena, who has never even managed a keep before, with a smile and a daughterly embrace. Well, a pox on that, Aemma thinks, and a pox on anyone who keeps prattling on about how Father is only seven-and-twenty and has plenty of time to sire a son. 

“Aemma,” Septa says, “your falcon is looking rather morbid.”

Aemma supposes the tiny falcon she is supposed to be embroidering does in fact resemble a raven or crow. “I’ll give this one to your lady mother,” she informs Anya, who is bent studiously over her own work, “She was a Corbray before she was a Waynwood.”

Anya huffs quietly but says nothing. Rhea and Anya are her closest friends, both eldest daughters in their families, both mere months apart from her in age. They have always taken their lessons together and they have always spent long periods of time at the Eyrie, for every house is always trying to flatter Aemma by sending her their daughters or sisters to be her little companions. Aemma does not mind, for Father thinks a girl like her should have as many friends as she pleases, and he always says she needs to be around more womenfolk, not just him and his knights. 

Alys counts, too, but she is going to be married within the next few years, and she is too old for most of Aemma’s lessons, having learned all there is to know by the age of four-and-ten. Septa tries to teach her more about history and the Faith, since Alys is too old for lessons in reading and writing and numbers, but Alys isn’t very interested in any of that. Aemma can’t blame her. If there’s one thing the Vale loves, it is it’s history, and nearly every lord is all too happy to recount to you the entire saga of his house’s formation and triumphs… no matter how long it takes to get through it all.

At least Father does not tend to ramble so, for he is sensible and knows when to hold his tongue and let others make fool of themselves. That is what Uncle Ronnel says. Aemma finds it funny since Ron is sometimes a bit of a fool himself, but he is only two-and-twenty, and they say some men are very slow to leave boyhood behind. He only became a knight this year, after all, fighting the mountain clans. 

That’s what mostly everyone does when they want to become a knight. Find a mountain clan to fight, survive with enough valor in tact to qualify for a knighthood. Or participate in a tourney, she supposes. They like to knight the melee winners fairly often. Father was still just a squire when he was wed, but he was knighted when she was a year old, and they held a tourney to celebrate her first name day. They have a small one for Aemma near every year, unless the weather is terrible. 

Aemma finishes off her morbid, raven-studded kerchief, and folds it neatly in her lap, listening to the wind rustle through the treetops just outside the tower window. It is still early autumn and they have only just begun to bring in the harvests. She is looking forward to pumpkin pies at nearly every dinner for months to come. This past summer was a particularly hot one, even in the Vale, which is usually untouched by the heat and humidity. Aemma is going to have fine new fur-lined woolen gowns for winter, and several new cloaks, one of which will be cloth of silver and only for very special occasions. Father will wed Rowena and no one will like her and she will not give him a son. Aemma wonders if she believes in it hard enough, if that will make it so. 

Septa gives her an old shirt of Ronnel’s to practice her mending on. Aemma pokes at it, staring out the window that looks out onto the garden. That is one thing Rowena will be good for. Mending shirts. 

“Lady Aemma.” Maester Lyonel, who oversaw her birth, is looming in the doorway. Sometimes people jape the maesters are all frail and bookish, but Aemma is not sure why Maester Lyonel never became a knight instead, because he is absurdly tall and bulky for a man who spends most days reading or writing. His grey robes just make him look all the larger, and people stare after him wherever he goes, as if wondering if he is not some mercenary in disguise. “Your father has a letter he wishes to discuss with you.”

This is not out of the ordinary; Father often shows letters to her from various lords or merchants, so she might learn the best way to reply to them, and how to glean men’s meaning when they are refusing to get to the point. Aemma mostly enjoys it because she’s always liked listening to him read. She used to beg him for stories when she was small, and grow upset when he’d send in a servant instead. Father has a natural voice for storytelling; rich and deep without being too distracting or intimidating. Things seem more lively in his telling, whether it be of ancient Arryn kings, the Blackfyre rebellions, or of what Mother was like. He says Mother was a wonderful dancer, just like Aemma, and one could not help but notice her graceful bearing and elegant manners.

Aemma flounces out of her seat, smoothing the skirt of her pale powdery blue dress, and shooting little smug looks at Anya and Rhea. Rhea sticks her tongue out, then ducks her head before Septa can scold her, while Anya simply sighs and begins to thread her needle all over again, clicking her tongue. Aemma turns on her heel, gives Septa Ellyn a merry little wave over her shoulder, and follows after Maester Lyonel, head held high, adjusting the wispy white ribbons in her sandy blonde hair. 

They pass through the arcade gallery, full of tapestries both old and new, all depicting famous battles, coronations, and weddings. The muffled sound of the hall makes their footfall all the louder, and distantly Aemma can hear the autumnal wind howling along the eaves. Though she is eleven, this is her very first autumn, and she is eagerly awaiting the full changing of the trees, those vivid, fabled bursts of color she’s heard so much about. She has no memory of winter, either, even if there is always a lingering sharp chill in the air in the Vale, and always some snow atop the mountains, of course.

As they reach the end of the arcade of tapestries, Maester Lyonel knocks once on the thick oaken door leading into her father’s solar. There is a smaller, lady’s solar at the very top of the Maiden’s Tower, but for the time being it is used as a private library. Aemma can read quite well, but confesses she often cannot seem to find the time for it, and so the library is often empty unless they have particularly curious guests. 

Father’s lord’s solar is much larger, with a grand trestle table that can seat eight, towering bookshelves, and windows overlooking the mountain peaks just outside. The carpet underfoot is plush and Myrish, and Aemma walks briskly across it to her father’s side; he looks up from his position at the head of the table at her approach, and smiles warmly, gesturing for her to take a seat just beside him. Aemma eagerly scoots forward in the too-big chair, her feet not quite touching the floor. Maester Lyonel sometimes stays to offer his advice or insight on certain letters, but today he silently sees himself out, the door shutting gently behind him. 

“And how has your door day been, my girl?” Father asks her, taking her small hand in his much larger one. Father is nowhere near as tall and strong as Maester Lyonel, but he has proud, broad shoulders, a straight back, and his hair has not begun to fall out yet. That is good, Aemma, thinks, because Father is not even thirty yet, and Rhea’s lord father is only a little older and already as bald as an egg. 

“Very good,” she says. “We were just attending to our needlework. I can make you a new crest for your cloak, if you like.”

He kisses her on the brow. “That is very kind of you, sweetling, but I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you with sewing projects. I know Septa keeps you hard at work. Kerchiefs for Lady Rowena this week, wasn’t it?” Alys says she is lucky, and that many fathers do not take half as much time as Father does to ask after Aemma’s lessons and how she feels about them and what she is learning. She says he could easily ignore her because she is not a son. 

Aemma doesn’t see how anyone could ever ignore her. She was not made to be ignored. 

Still, she can feel her smile stiffen slightly, like drying paint. “Yes,” she chirps. “I can hardly wait to give them to her.”

Father’s smile does not fade, but his eyes seem to soften slightly, as if in pity. Aemma can’t stand that; she is glad he squeezes her hand and releases it before she can try to jerk away in annoyance. She never wants Father to pity her, ever. She was not made to be pitied, either. She is an Arryn of the Eyrie, and hers is the blood of the first kings. 

“I have a letter we must speak about,” he says, and after a moment’s hesitation, reads it aloud, slowly and clearly, to her.

Aemma stares at him blankly, only registering that it is a letter from the King. She thinks she met the King once, when she was very small and he and his family visited. She couldn’t have been any older than four or five. It was before Prince Duncan ran off with that peasant girl and gave up his rights to the throne. Now it will go to his brother, Prince Jaehaerys. Septa says he was mad for love. Aemma can’t comprehend of such a thing, but then again, she has never fallen in love, and she certainly hopes the first man she falls for is not poor and lowborn, no matter how pretty his looks.

“Aemma,” Father says, gently, “the letter is about you and Prince Maegor.”

Now, this is very confusing, Aemma will admit, because the Targaryens are a complicated family. Prince Maegor is not one of the King’s sons. King Aegon has three sons. Duncan is the eldest and he and Father were friends as boys when Father was a squire at the royal court. They are still friends, only perhaps in a strained sense because Aemma was eavesdropping once and overheard Father discussing Duncan relinquishing his inheritance for a common woman, and she knows Father strongly disapproves, in part because it almost provoked war with the Baratheons.

Jaehaerys is the second and he was meant to marry a Tully, only he eloped with his sister, who was supposed to marry a Tyrell. Now Jaehaerys is Crown Prince, which doesn’t quite seem fair when he broke his word, but that is just the way of it. Daeron is the third and so far the only one who has not broken his betrothal. He is pledged to wed some lady from the Reach, Aemma forgets her name. There are also two princesses; Shaera, who wed Jaehaerys and broke her betrothal to the Tyrell heir, and Rhaelle, who now has to wed the Baratheon heir because Duncan broke his betrothal. Aemma thinks she’d be rather angry with a brother if that happened to her. Fortunately, she has no brothers at present. 

Prince Maegor is the son of Princess Daenora, who is King Aegon’s first cousin, the daughter of his now dead uncle Rhaegel. Rhaegel wed Aemma’s own great-aunt, Alys, who Alys, Father’s little sister, is named after. They are both dead now, and all their children dead as well, save Daenora, the youngest, who was wed to her cousin, the King’s own elder brother, Aerion. So that makes Maegor and Aemma second cousins.

Everyone whispers that Aerion was mad and cruel and that it was a relief to most when he died. He died drinking wildfire, because he thought Targaryens could not burn. Evidently, that is incorrect. Maegor is his son, and he might have been king when King Maekar died and they held the Great Council, only he was just a babe and everyone worried he would be as mad and evil as his father. So it went to Aegon instead, who is now the King, and Maegor just a prince. 

Aemma has never met Maegor. All she knows is that he is three-and-ten and that they say he looks a good deal like his father. 

“Aemma,” Father says, again, too gently. “The King is proposing a betrothal between yourself and Prince Maegor.”

Aemma stares at him, blinks, and blurts out, “Why?”

Father pauses, as if considering how to phrase this. “Because he wants to make a fine match for his young cousin. And we are a strong and loyal house for his cousin to wed into.”

Aemma supposes there are no Targaryens whom Maegor could wed at the moment. The only unpromised girl is the second child of Jaehaerys and Shaera, the babe Rhaella, who was born two moons past. And thirteen years between spouses is an awfully long time to wait to wed someone. “Is it because you are friends with Prince Duncan?” she asks.

Father allows, “My friendship with the prince has given the King good cause to believe me loyal to his rule.” He pauses again, then says, “Will you not smile, Aemma? You should like to marry a prince, wouldn’t you? You will not find a higher match in Westeros.”

“But he won’t inherit anything,” Aemma says. “He’ll always just be Prince Maegor.”

Father’s smile vanishes, and he says in a different sort of tone, “Yes. He will always be a prince. But he is a squire now, and he will be a knight someday soon, a fine one, and if… if he proves himself a leal man, I am sure he will be well rewarded by King Aegon. You and he might rule a fine keep someday, and your children might themselves wed back into the royal line. Think on that, Aemma. You could be mother to a queen.”

Like Aemma, mother to Rhaenyra. But she died in the birthing bed. Like Aemma’s own mother. 

“I don’t want to be a queen’s mother,” she blurts out. “I want to stay here, with you, and be Lady of the Vale.” She’d meant to say Lady of the Eyrie, meant it to just sound like she wanted to be the lady of the household, but it has spilled out all the same.

Father stills. Carefully, he folds the letter back up, the paper crinkling. He turns to her, grave and serious. Aemma has never been afraid of him, even when he was angry with her. But even she is not so impudent as to stare belligerently back at him. She drops her gaze to her lap, fidgeting. 

“I should have wed again sooner,” he says, “when you were still a toddling babe, so you might have had a proper mother.”

Aemma doesn’t need a mother; she has Septa and Alys and many of the maidservants, like Melly and Wilma and Little Jeyne. They are the ones who brushed her hair and held her when she was frightened and told her stories of Florian and Jonquil. But she holds her tongue, for now.

“I did not,” he says. “I was grieving your mother, but it was selfish. It was not what was best for you. It has led to…,” he pauses, then admits, “confused expectations on both our parts. Aemma. You will always be my daughter, and you will always be my firstborn child. I do not like to see you unhappy or alone. But ruling is a heavy burden, and it is not one I should like to put on you, not when I can spare you it. It is no easy thing for a woman to rule alone. Others would seek to manipulate you, to use you for their own benefit. And I have given my word to take Rowena into our household and wed her. Hers has not been an easy life, and if I can give her a more comfortable one as my wife, I must. She is still our blood.”

Aemma still says nothing, biting her lower lip, glancing up at him every so often from under her brow. 

“But you are old enough to understand,” Father continues soberly, “what happens between a man and wife. You are old enough to know that it is very likely we will have children, and a son will inherit my titles and holdings here.”

“But you might not,” Aemma says. “Have a son.”

He puts a hand on her skinny shoulder. “I do not want you to think this is a punishment, Aemma. You will always be cared and provided for. But it is very likely that you will not be the heir to House Arryn, when you have come of age. And I have always wanted a high match for you. I know you will charm the King and Queen and their children, and I am sure Maegor will come to love you as we all do. You would be wife to a prince of House Targaryen. That is no small thing.”

Aemma supposes the only other prince she might wed is Prince Aerys, who is only one. It is not a very enticing thought. He probably drools on himself. 

Perhaps it is not so bad, she thinks, although of course she would prefer a Valeman, a handsome Redfort or Corbray. But he might even have the traditional Targaryen looks, not like the King’s children, and their babies might be beautiful, with hair like silver and gold and eyes of purple. If only his name were not so awful. Maegor. After Maegor the Cruel. Baelor or Maekar would be better. Even Viserys. She supposes it could be Daemon. That might be worse. 

“When is he coming to visit?” she asks, instead.

Father’s brow creases. “Aemma, you have been invited to spend the winter at court, with the royal family. Did you not hear, when I read to you?”

Not really. She’d been too stunned to do much but stare at him. “The… the whole winter?” she asks, voice going slightly shrill.

Father pulls her close in an embrace, moving from his seat as her lower lip begins to tremble. “Don’t cry, now. Aemma. It will be alright. You will like court, I know you will, and the weather will be much milder that far south. This will be good for you. You will be a cupbearer for the queen herself, and you will meet so many fine lords and ladies you will forget you ever missed us.”

“You’re not coming with me?” she sputters in between sobs. This seems inconceivable. They have never been separated for more than a few weeks at a time, nevermind months, years. They say the winter will be at least two. What is she supposed to do at court by herself for two years without Father? 

“I will visit when I can,” he assures her, “and of course we will write- Aemma, don’t cry, now- you will have companions, of course you will. Ronnel with accompany you with our men, and Rhea and Anya, if their fathers permit it-,”

More tears. 

“And new clothes,” he says, hurriedly, “you must have new things for court, I promise you, Aemma, once you have arrived we will see to it that you are properly outfitted, so you will not feel humbled before the other girls-,”

The thought of that does stifle some of the throatier noises Aemma is making, but she is still sniffling when he releases her from his warm embrace, stroking her soft hair. “This will be good for you,” Father repeats. “You will not… I know my new marriage cannot be easy for you, and this will be… it is for the best, that you have some time apart, as you grow into your womanhood, Aemma. You would not wed until you come of age, and by then you will be more than ready to visit home, won’t you?”

“We’ll live here? Maegor and I?” she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes in a very unladylike manner.

“That is up to the discretion of your husband and the King,” he says, gently, “but I am sure that between your income and his you will have plenty of time and coin to travel when and where you please.”

Aemma sniffs again, and her eyes are still wet, but her face is dry, albeit pink and puffy now from exertion. She can hardly return to her needlework like this, so Father sends her off to visit Grandmother instead. Grandmother or Lady Grandmother, as Aemma sometimes calls her, is really named Alyssa Redfort, and she wed Jasper Arryn, Father’s father, and together they had Father, Alys, Ronnel, and several dead babes. Aemma is not supposed to talk about those, though, although she has seen where they are buried, in the ancient Arryn crypts underneath the Gates of the Moon. If an Arryn dies at the Eyrie, their bones are brought down the mountain to rest with their ancestors. That is where Mother is buried, too, so Aemma usually only visits her a few times a year. She doesn’t like the crypts; she saw a rat scurry past her feet in them once, and all but leap into Father’s arms, shrieking. 

Grandmother is ill and has been for near six moons now. Her illness is slow but wasting; she is only one-and-fifty but looks two decades older now, her body withered and wrinkled, her once rich dark auburn hair gone to silvery grey and thinning at her scalp, her blue eyes pale and watery. Aemma finds it easier not to look at her when she speaks, because she still remembers when Grandmother was healthy and could move about and even play with her, when she was stout and warm and sturdy, not this husk of a woman. But today she is still so upset that it does not seem to matter so much, and she all but curls up beside Grandmother in her little bed. 

“Your father did not want to marry your mother, either,” Grandmother says abruptly. She smells of poppy wine and old bed linens. 

Aemma wipes at her nose. “That’s not true. He loved her.”

“The love seldom comes before the wedding, sweetling. He was grieving his father, your grandfather. He was just a boy. He’d no desire for a wife. But I saw what had to be done for all of our sake. We needed the support of the Royces. He was not even knighted, my Jon. He was untested and untried. Many though they could puppet him at will, thought him soft-natured and weak. Jasper was never the most firm of men. Jon was furious with me for pushing the match, and he could not refuse it without risking great offense.”

Aemma has never heard this before. Of course she knows Father and Mother’s marriage was arranged, but she had always assumed they loved one another as soon as they saw each other- how could they not? “But he said she was so beautiful on their wedding day.”

“She was. But he did not know her, nor she him. Still, they had a happy year together, before your birth. Your father learned when to put his pride aside. Your mother was a vain thing, but she came to love him for honesty, not his looks.”

“I’m not vain,” Aemma says, doubtfully. Just because she likes looking at herself and wearing pretty clothes does not mean she is vain. Rhea says she is vain because she hates riding, but what is so enjoyable about sitting on a giant, smelly creature and swaying with every single step it takes? Not to mention the mud and dirt produced. She does not want to have to wear muted colors like browns and greens every time she goes out simply for fear of her nicer cloaks and gowns being ruined. 

Grandmother seems like she wants to laugh at that, but just produces a dry rattle. “You are a mix of the two of them, I should say. You have more of Jon’s look, but you are every bit Jeyne’s daughter as well. You’ll do well at court. The Targaryens like their children proud and insolent. 

Aemma does not know how accurate that is, but truthfully, she knows very little about what goes on in the Red Keep. She has never even left the Vale in her entire life; it is so large and expansive, there is so much to see and do, why bother? Mountainous fortresses and secret passages and sprawling blue rivers and lakes. Gulltown’s white-washed walls and Old Anchor’s creaky old docks and the dark, brooding forests of the Sunkenwood. The lonely Fingers, the lush valleys of the Vale, and fiercely guarded Bloody Gate. 

“How long will it take?” she asks Grandmother, muffling her face into one of the silk pillows. “To go from here to King’s Landing?”

Grandmother thinks for a moment. “In autumn, near fifty days of riding down from the mountains and along the Kingsroad,” she says after a moment. “And you’ll not get a wheelhouse until you’ve crossed the river at Darry, like as not, so you had best get used to the saddle, Aemma.”

Fifty days seems like a lifetime. Aemma lets out a low whine, kicking her stockinged feet against the mattress. “That long? Father will never come visit.”

“He’ll take a ship from Gulltown when he can,” Grandmother consoles her. “That’s just a week’s voyage.”

“Then why can’t I sail there?”

“Because he will not risk you being caught up in vicious autumn storms on the seas, especially near Dragonstone.” Grandmother strokes her hair with a shaky hand. “Now, sit up, child. You are not leaving just yet. We have a wedding to attend to first.”

This is somehow all Rowena’s fault, Aemma decides. She is certain of it. Father would never agree to wed her to a Targaryen if he thought she was going to inherit rule of the Vale. Her sole consolation is that she may get the cloth of silver cloak all the sooner, if she is going to court, and that Alys will be horrendously jealous of all of this, which will serve her right for always being so cutting and mean to Aemma. 

A Waynwood, even if he is already a knight, is nothing compared to a Targaryen prince. Gods, but did his mad father have to call him Maegor? She mouths it to herself. Maegor. Maegor. Ugh, it sounds like someone spitting! How can she possibly call him ‘Maegor’ without looking revolted? Perhaps he has a nickname. Or she will simply call him ‘Ser Husband’ or ‘my lord’. But that seems far too deferential, unless he is also calling her ‘my lady’ or ‘my heart’ or ‘my fair maiden’. They’ll have to come to some sort of agreement on this. 

This and many other things, she thinks darkly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. Update schedule: I released this chapter early at the urging of followers on tumblr, and because I am weak-willed with poor impulse control. This fic will only have around four 5000+ word chapters, but chances are I will not have chapter 2 done in time to update it next weekend, so we should expect a new chapter around July 30/31st. If it happens sooner, it will be a happy surprise. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but Aemma is too chatty. 
> 
> 2\. I described this fic on my tumblr as 'what happens when you stick Cher from Clueless and Zuko from ATLA in a room together'. If this chapter had a cheesy title, it would be "Oh my god, I am totally buggin'!" This is going to be pretty light-hearted compared to most of my ASOIAF fics and there is no intense overarching political plot (I hope). So I would expect more slice of life-ish stuff. With some Targaryen drama thrown into the mix, because it wouldn't be a fic involving Egg's kids without it. 
> 
> 3\. In case anyone is very confused/lost as to the time period and setting. This fic is an AU involving the survival of Jon Arryn's infant daughter from his first marriage. Jon Arryn was wed three times in canon. The first time was to Jeyne Royce, who died in childbirth. In this fic, her infant daughter survives instead of being stillborn. I have set Jon Arryn's birth year as 218 AC, making him 27 in 245 AC and father to the 11 year old Aemma. In the background for this fic he spent time as a boy/teenager as a ward of the court at the Red Keep, being just two years older than Prince Duncan, who was the heir to the Iron Throne at the time. So that explains the current friendship between House Arryn and House Targaryen.
> 
> 4\. At the start of this fic, Aemma is technically Jon's heir, as his only child, but he has not officially declared her as such. Because Jeyne was only pregnant once and that pregnancy resulted in a healthy child (at the cost of her life), no one believes Jon should have any difficulties siring multiple children on his soon to be second wife, Rowena. The moment he has a healthy son it is understood that the boy will be heir to the Vale and future Warden of the East, displacing Aemma and rendering her just a daughter to be married off. This is partially why she is so hostile towards the idea of her father remarrying to Rowena. 
> 
> 5\. If you have not read any of the 'expanded canon material', you may not know who Maegor, or as I like to call him, Lil Maegor is. Maegor is the son of Daenora, Aegon V's first cousin, and Aerion, Aegon V's sadistic older brother. Aerion was memorably the brother who threatened to cut off Egg's genitals to 'turn him into a sister who he could marry'. Yeah. That guy. Luckily for everyone, Aerion was also delusional, and downed a goblet of wildfire at a feast, believing he was impervious to fire damage. He left behind a widowed Daenora and an infant son, who he insisted on naming Maegor after Maegor the Cruel, because Aerion was just that Edgy. Through traditional Andal inheritance, Maegor technically had the best claim to the throne, but was passed over at the time of Maekar's death due to concerns that he might turn out like his father, and an aversion to a long regency for him. In 245 AC, Lil Maegor is a 13 year old squire, and we can assume he... may not be the happiest of teens. 
> 
> 6\. Rhea Royce, one of Aemma's friends, was named after the Rhea Royce famously wed to Prince Daemon, who called her 'the Bronze Bitch' and who then tried to seize control of Runestone after her death. It's safe to say the Royces have never forgotten that particular slight. Anya Waynwood and Yohn Royce are the same ones we see as much older adults in canon, since this fic is about 50 years before the ASOIAF series kicks off. I wanted to explore House Arryn in this fic because I don't think they're all that commonly written about in fanfiction, maybe because there are so few Arryns left by the time of canon.
> 
> 7\. The next chapter should encompass the wedding of Jon and Rowena, Aemma's arrival at court, and the somewhat tumultuous Targaryen family dynamics, or 'what happens when every child but one breaks their betrothal and the youngest daughter is left to bear the brunt of it while marrying into a family who now loathes her eldest brother'. (Although technically, Daeron has not yet broken his betrothal to Olenna). 
> 
> 8\. You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) if you would like to discuss this fic or others, suggest prompts, ask questions, etc.


	2. Chapter 2

245 AC - THE EYRIE

“How do I look?” Aemma inquires anxiously of Melly, who gives her the sort of look which implies it is a bit foolish of her to ask such a question.

Now, to be fair, it is not that Aemma is trying to in any way ‘outdo’ the bride. That would be horrible. Unconscionable. The height of disrespect. It is only that she can hardly help if this is her very finest gown, can she?

The dress itself is a pale, buttery shade of yellow which the seamstress swore up and down called to mind tender spring sunshine. It is not spring, so they will simply have to make do. The paned sleeves are ribboned a shade brighter yellow, and the bodice gleams with golden Myrish lace. It is, without a doubt, the most expensive piece of clothing Aemma has ever worn, and it is so beautiful she cannot even dread having to wear it again for her presentation to court. 

Tiny bronze bells are dangling from her ears, chiming very faintly with every frantic turn of her head as she shifts in front of the looking glass. 

“M’lady,” Melly says. “Please stop poking at your sleeves. You’ll fray them.”

Aemma chews on her lower lip thoughtfully, and then grasps her silken smooth skirts instead, and practices a curtsy which she hopes is equal parts respectful and contemptuous. Coldly gracious? She could try for that, like a queen ceding her conquered castle to the invaders while maintaining her dignity. Like when Queen Sharra surrendered the Vale to Visenya. 

The Targaryens may like to smugly pat themselves on the back for that, but the Vale chooses to remember not the woman who alighted from a dragon’s back, coolly confident in her victory, but the woman who looked the dragon and its rider in the eyes as she approached. Sharra may have surrendered, Aemma has heard a hundred times, but never once did she flinch or give any indication of her fear. She never gave them the satisfaction of that. 

Just as Aemma will not give Rowena the satisfaction. Not that she believes Rowena expects fear or even trepidation from her, but if she thinks Aemma is going to meekly submit to her and be seen off with a smile and a wave to court, neatly disposed of, well- a pox on that, Aemma thinks. And a pox on this wedding. Only she can’t really think that, it might mean bad luck for Father, and she does want him to be happy, she does. He has never even been whoring before, not like some men who are married and go anyways, like Anya’s lord father. Father could have had a mistress all these years, or many mistresses, or paraded around bastard sons and daughters, but he never did. 

That, Aemma fervently believes, is what makes him the best of men, or at least among their ranks. She cannot say who should outrank him. The King, perhaps, or Ser Duncan the Tall. But no others. In Aemma’s mind, no other lord paramount could dare compare. So as much as she wants to throw a fit today and refuse to leave her room, she is going to come down to the sept like a good, dutiful daughter, and sit in the very first pew, and wear her prettiest gown, and she is not going to look in the least intimidated or nervous when Rowena walks down the aisle with her own wretched old father, because it is not even worth her nerves. And that is that. Aemma practices another perfect curtsy. 

“That’s enough of that,” Melly advises. “Lady Alys is waiting for you outside with your septa, m’lady. Best be on your way.”

Septa is wearing her best starched white robes and her finest white wimple, which is truly so gauzy you can see the outline of her braided hair underneath. Her woven belt glimmers with all the colors of the rainbow, threaded into the same weave, over and over again. Aemma has always wanted such a belt, but you must take holy vows to the Seven in order to wear one, and while she is of course quite devout, if not always dutiful- well, she has little intention of taking to a motherhouse anytime soon. That would please Rowena far too much, and she is not so desperate to escape marriage to Maegor as to run off to Gulltown. 

Alys is in Arryn blues, but her bodice is cut very much like a woman’s, and Aemma wonders if that is supposed to be for Elys’ benefit. Alys looks a good deal like Aemma and Father; she has the same sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, although she is a head taller than Aemma and a good deal more shapely, to Aemma’s dismay. Grandmother says it is her Redfort blood; their women tend to be plump. “Really,” Alys hisses, as she fusses with her long sleeves, which nearly touch the floor, “I thought we agreed to wear our blues, Aemma. You should be representing House Arryn today.”

“Well,” Aemma says earnestly, taking Alys’ arm, “I thought about it, truly, I did, Aly, but then I thought that this dress would look ever so much better, and it does! I always wear blue gowns.”

“Your dress is so pale it is nearly white,” Alys retorts as they slowly, slowly, descend their winding stairwell, skirts whispering after them. “You look a little fool.”

“Alys,” Septa Ellyn says reprovingly, under her breath. “Let us keep a kind tongue on your brother’s wedding day.”

“Oh, it is hardly as if it is his first,” Alys snaps. Aemma and her are united in that much; Alys is no more pleased that Father is remarrying than Aemma is. It is hardly as if Rowena threatens Alys’ own position; Aemma suspects it has more to do with resentment towards Father than anything else. Alys begrudges him this match because she is not pleased with her own; she wanted a wealthy Arryn of Gulltown, she got a Waynwood knight instead. Elys is hardly poor, but he will never be able to give her the life she desires. 

Aemma does not hold it against her, or think Alys vain or arrogant for it; she would be just as upset, in her position. Elys’ blood matters more to Father than his coin. But even if Aemma is also not marrying a man who will ever rule in his own right, at least said man is a prince. And perhaps she and Maegor will get Summerhall someday; Prince Duncan and his Jenny hold it now, but everyone says they will never have children, that either Duncan’s seed is very weak, or that Jenny bartered away her womb while dabbling in witchcraft. Aemma dearly hopes she is a witch, because that would be very exciting to marry into. Imagine having a witch in the family. Perhaps she could curse whomever she pleased. 

Still, one ought not to be thinking of magic and curses while approaching a sept. Aemma tries to turn her thoughts pure and virtuous, difficult as it sometimes is to concentrate on something so… vague. It’s not that she does not believe. The Vale is proudly the most devout of the seven kingdoms and Aemma has never been remiss in her study of the Faith. Well, mostly never remiss. She can recite entire passages from the Maiden’s Book, and that is more than many girls her age can say. Father says it is because she has an excellent memory, which always makes Aemma proud. 

She has to; Aemma knows it will be her duty to greet every one of the lords and ladies present tonight, and she’d be a poor excuse for a daughter if she could not keep their names and houses straight. Anyone who says a lady’s study of courtesies is worthless is a fool. Septa has taught her that much. Courtesy is a lady’s weapon and her shield. It is what she uses to open doors and persuade others. Septa says it is never acceptable to be knowingly dishonest or deceitful, but it is also no sin to use the natural graces the gods have given her to smooth the path before her. Aemma is quite alright with that. She’s the most naturally graceful person she knows. 

The seven-sided ceiling of the Eyrie’s sept is high and vaulted and painted with a beautiful series of murals, depicting the Andal conquest of Westeros and the establishment of the first kingdom of the Vale, and the gods’ impact on the lives of mortal men, from the Maiden blessing a young bride to the Mother watching children frolic in a meadow to the Crone holding a lantern aloft for a studious maester to read by. The sun, approaching high noon, has set the towering crystal windows alight in a spectacular mix of colors, rainbow shadows spread across the narrow pews. Aemma takes her place near the front, in between Ronnel and Alys, and glances across the aisle to smile briefly at the Royces and Waynwoods. 

Father is already standing with Septon Rayner, in between the imposing marble statues of the Father and the Mother. The Father has a flowing white beard and a rather grim look on his face, Aemma thinks, tilting her chin up to better inspect him. The bronze scales of justice sit perfectly even, the only metal part of the statue, dangling from his clenched fist. His eyes are sapphires. The Mother looks much younger, not a grizzled old man but a woman in her prime, and her long hair is braided in a crown atop her head. She smiles serenely, cradling a stone infant at her breast, an unseen wind tugging at her marble robes. Her eyes are emeralds. 

As a general rule, Aemma prefers sapphires, for they match her eyes, but emeralds are very pretty too. When she is Maegor’s wife, she supposes she will eventually inherit his mother’s jewelry, and they say his father made some great fortunes while exiled in Lys, serving with the Second Sons as a fearsome sellsword. Perhaps they will have enough money to go on a tour abroad. Aemma would very much like to see Essos, especially Braavos. She doesn’t think she’d especially like to visit the slave cities, no matter how beautiful they are. Still, it is probably wrong of her to be thinking about precious jewels while standing in a sept filled with the light of the Seven.

But before she can consider her prayers, there is a general hush cast over the crowds, and everyone’s head turns to regard the bride’s entrance while someone plucks at the harp. Aemma should have a very good view, given her seat, but she is not even five feet tall, and finds herself reduced to peeking around people’s elbows until Ronnel takes pity and hoists her up to stand on the pew. 

“Ron, get her down from there,” Alys hisses under her breath, but Uncle Ron just shakes her off, grinning, and holding onto Aemma with one hand so she does not slip and crack her head open on the varnished wood. 

Besides, no one is looking at her. Aemma has not seen Rowena in several years, and for a few moments does not recognize the woman being escorted into the sept by her doddering, stooped father. This finely dressed bride seems a far cry from the shy, timid girl Aemma remembers. But it is Rowena all the same; no amount of new finery could hide the tendrils of mousy brown hair escaping from under her lavish, lacy veil, which flows down to her waist. 

Her dress is simple in design and very modest, as most Valewomen’s are, but it is still impressive, snow white and finely embroidered with sky blue detailing along the bodice and down the sleeves. The high neckline is framed by an impressive silver medallion in the shape of the moon, hanging against her thin chest. Her maiden cloak is somewhat less richly made than her dress; it looks old and faded, but it is near identical to the cloak neatly tucked away for Alys and then Aemma to someday wear; sky blue with a white moon and falcon emblazoned across the back. Aemma is somewhat dismayed by this. Rowena isn’t a proper Arryn of the Vale, just a poor cousin, she has no right to their sigil. 

But she does now, because she’s marrying Father. 

Ronnel yanks her back down from the pew before anyone can notice; Septa Ellyn sighs under her breath.

As Rowena nears the altars and the waiting groom and septon, Aemma gets a better look at her face. She has a faint spray of freckles across her skinny nose, her lips are drawn into a nervous looking sort of crease, the top over the lower, and her ears stick out slightly, even hidden under her veil. She looks younger than Aemma expected, although twenty is well and truly a woman grown and nearly a spinster, if you ask Rhea. Despite her dislike of her, Aemma suddenly feels, inexplicably, that she will be quite cross with Father if he does not at least smile at Rowena, for she looks almost frightened, and whatever her feelings for her soon to be stepmother, Aemma thinks it a rather horrid injustice that any woman should feel trepidation on her wedding day. If everyone says marriage is the very highest aspiration of any lady, and it is her glory and duty to wed for her family, then oughtn’t the weddings to be a bit more pleasant for the woman? 

Alys thinks the bedding ceremony is absolutely barbaric, and it is one of the few things she and Aemma agree upon. It is. How would men like it if before their first joust they were stripped nude and forced to prance around for the other knights? Certainly, Septa says, men are subjected to crude and unwelcome overtures from the women escorting them to the bedchamber, but those women by and large are not strong enough to drag the man there kicking and screaming, or throw him over their shoulders while ripping off his clothes. 

Aemma does not think there will be a bedding ceremony tonight, because Father is a widower and it might be seen as disrespectful to Mother’s memory. But there will be one when Alys is wed and when she is, she supposes. She is a bit worried about that. The idea of wedding Maegor is one thing. The idea of every man in the Targaryen family seeing her naked and getting to paw at her and make nasty japes while they deliver her to her husband’s bed is quite another. There’s far too many of them for her liking. And it is not even as if she could raise complaints about it the way she would be able to if an ordinary lord’s son infringed upon her honor, for they are all princes and outrank her. Maegor will outrank her. She does not like the thought of that at all. 

Belatedly, she realizes the ceremony has begun, and watches Father give Rowena a gentle sort of smile that seems more akin to a brother than a husband. Rowena smiles back, tremulously, as she links her small hands with his. Despite her very slender- almost downright skinny frame- she is not at all a short woman, and is nearly of a height with Father, which annoys Aemma, who takes after her small mother in size. Septa says she must be very careful not to get with child before she is at least seven or eight-and-ten, once she is wed, because she worries Aemma will not have the hips for it and that a babe will kill her, the way Aemma’s birth killed Mother. 

She doesn’t like to think about that, though. She didn’t mean to. She is very, very sorry for it and she hopes Mother can forgive her for it someday. Maester Lyonel says that it was the convulsions that killed Mother, anyways, not the birth itself. She didn’t bleed out, she just kept seizing and then she stopped breathing and died. Maester Lyonel did not tell her all that to frighten her, and if Father found out Aemma knew exactly how he’d be furious, but Maester Lyonel says knowledge is the balm to fear, and that it is better that Aemma know than always wonder. 

Aemma turns her gaze back to the sparkling emerald eyes of the Mother, who does not look angry at all, but eternally content. At the end of the ceremony, Septon Rayner declares Father and Rowena husband and wife, lord and lady of the Vale, and the sept bursts into polite applause. The harper plays them out, and Father reaches out and squeezes Aemma’s hand affectionately as he passes, arm in arm with his new blushing young wife. Aemma watches them go with a sensation of stinging shock, as if she’d just run into a patch of nettles. Part of her cannot quite believe he went through with it. She glances up at Ronnel, who lays a hand on her shoulder, while Alys adjusts the ornate clasp of her cloak. 

“Aemmy,” Ron tells her, lowering his voice as if confiding an intriguing secret, while the guests begin to file out of the sept, murmuring to one another. “I’ve heard they’re going to have honey almond cakes with the last course tonight.”

Aemma cannot say she is happy, but she does dearly love almond cakes. Their cook, Joss, calls them bee sting cakes for the honeyed almonds crumbled on the top. He says every time he bakes it, he’s sure to get stung, so many bees come buzzing round, looking for their honey. Aemma used to believe that when she was little, and he’d cry out in mock pain every time he cut her a slice, which was usually however many she liked before Septa found her sitting on someone’s lap in the kitchens, getting honey all over her skirts. 

“Really?” she asks now, ignoring Alys’ exasperated sigh.

“Yes,” he says, gravely. “And raspberry and plum tarts, and lemon cakes-,”

“Aemma would live off air and sweets if she could,” Septa Ellyn says mildly. “Perhaps we will try to at least eat all our meat and vegetables before this, Aemma, yes?”

Aemma reddens; she is one-and-ten now and not a little girl to be warned to finish her meal before she gets her dessert. She is betrothed! Betrothed women don’t need to be reminded to eat their vegetables. She huffs haughtily and breaks away from the snickering Ronnel, marching ahead of them to link up with Rhea and Anya. 

“I thought she looked beautiful,” Anya says diplomatically. Anya is always diplomatic. Aemma thinks it is because her lord father and lady mother cannot stand each other; Anya has no choice but to be their little go-between, rushing to and through, delivering messages of utmost important between two hostile lands. 

Rhea has no such qualms. Septa says Rhea has about three sweet days a year, and the rest are sour as spoiled milk. Granted, she was quite cross when she said that, and later told Aemma that words spoken in anger ought not to be repeated, but it is still true.

“Very beautiful for a pauper,” Rhea giggles. “Did you see her face? She looked like a little field-mouse who’d fallen into an eagle’s nest! I think if you went up to her during the feast and said ‘boo!’ she’d squeak and run under a table!”

Aemma laughs at that, albeit softly, in case anyone like Alys is eavesdropping on them, just waiting to tattle. 

Anya shakes her head. “She’s not a pauper anymore. Lord Jon agreed to pay her father’s debts, and he waived half the customary dowry-,”

Aemma hates speaking of these sort of things. There is no fun to be had in discussing money unless it is your own. “He only feels badly because her brothers died in the last Rebellion,” she says, tossing her curls over her shoulders. 

Every generation or two the Blackfyres try to make their usual claims, and every generation or two they are sent scampering back to Essos, licking their wounds. The last time was when she just a toddling babe of two, during the last spring. Father sailed down from Gulltown to Sharp Point to join the fight, cutting the Blackfyres off with Valemen to the rear at the Wendwater, so they could not retreat back up the peninsula. They were utterly vanquished, of course, the Blackfyres. 

Septa says they give bastards everywhere a bad name. Septa is a bastard by birth, a Storm. Aemma is not supposed to know that, either, but she overheard Alys bring it up once while arguing with Septa. She said, “You are just some landed knight’s natural daughter, and you think to tell me how to comport myself?”. Aemma wonders how Alys found out, but Septa Ellyn is very honest and would never lie to anyone’s face if they asked her directly. Aemma would never ask, though. Some things ought not to be spoken of in polite conversation.

She supposes dead brothers are among them, too, for she feels a flare of guilt at Anya’s disapproving look and Rhea’s snickers. “They died warriors’ deaths, though,” Aemma adds, quickly. “Father says they were very brave knights.”

“Poor knights,” Rhea says archly. “Do you know her family could not even afford a septa for her, when she was young? Mother says they had to make do with an older cousin to tutor her. Can you imagine?” 

Rhea looks a little similar to that portrait of Mother; the same bronze brown hair, only hers is somewhat thicker and almost feathery, and her brown eyes gleam in the autumn sunlight. She has a good deal of freckles, which she loathes, although Aemma does not think them so terrible, truly. On some girls they can be charming. “I do hope she can read,” Rhea adds, covering her mouth with a hand as if to hide a yawn. “Wouldn’t that be shameful for your father, if she is simple?”

Aemma flares at that. “Of course she can read.” It feels almost like an insult to Father. As if he would be marrying a dullard, no matter his duty. “Lady Grandmother says she is quite clever, really. She almost became a septa herself.”

“Septa Rowena,” Rhea hums under her breath. “And the skinny, speckly Maiden spoke, and she said-,”

“Oh, do shut up,” Anya has lost some of her diplomacy; Aemma grins. Rhea is fun, but she does need to be put in her place every so often, or she grows insufferably mean, truly.

Before they can began the first course she has to greet all the guests and pay her respects to Father and Rowena. Aemma flits from seat to seat like a hummingbird, charming everyone, she thinks, with her compliments and sweet nature. Aemma has never met a bannerman of Father’s who she could not persuade to like her, no matter how prickly they might be. Lord Ruthermont says she is growing so fast that by the time they see her next, she will be near a woman grown. Lady Pryor says she is the very picture of Alys at her age. Lord Grafton insists she play them a few songs on the harp before the evening is out. 

Aemma has her place at the high table, of course, but is no longer to Father’s right; now Rowena sits there, and Alys on the other side of her, and then Aemma, and Ronnel on one end, and the empty seat of honor for Grandmother on the other. She has been too ill to eat with the family for some time now, but Father always has her place set all the same. 

“Welcome to my father’s hall, Lady Rowena,” Aemma tells her stepmother as sweetly as she can bear to, bobbing into a curtsy while Septa looks on approvingly. 

Father smiles warmly at her, but Rowena looks almost as nervous as she did when approaching the altar, and says in a thin, quiet voice, “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Aemma. Your family has been very kind. I am sure-,” she seems to hesitate, “I am sure we will be good friends.”

Some chance of that, Aemma thinks scornfully, but her bright smile does not waver. The feast is not so different from a thousand others, aside from the wedding songs played, and at Father’s suggestion Aemma sings Fair Maids of Summer, even though it will not be summer again for years, and Six Maids in a Pool, because that it one of her favorites. She has a fine voice and she knows it to be true because no one ever laughs good-naturedly at her singing, the way they sometimes do when children sing at feasts and it comes out breathless and pitchy. 

There is a good deal of dancing, too, which cheers her some. Father leads the first dance with Rowena, who is not as good a dancer as he but not so terrible, either, even if Rhea says she looks like an awkward colt. Aemma dances most of the songs with Alys or Ron, both of whom she has been dancing with for years, and who she can trust never to step on her toes. There is nothing that sours her mood like a poor dancing partner. Ronnel in particular will let her balance on his boots during the faster songs, because otherwise he would have to all but pick her up to keep pace with the others, since her legs are so short. 

She shares a bed with Anya and Rhea that night, trying to ignore the fact that Anya mumbles in her sleep, that Rhea kicks like a goat in hers, and that Rowena will have Mother’s old rooms now, and sleep in her bed, and wear her silks and jewels, carefully packed away in trunks and crates for all these years. Breakfast later that week, once all the guests have left, is near silent, until Rowena tentatively broaches the topic of Aemma’s upcoming travel south.

“You must be so excited for court,” she says, as Aemma picks at her eggs. “I know I would be. They say in the winter entire troupes of mummers reside in the Red Keep, and put on revelries near every week.” Aemma isn’t stupid, and knows it was not cruelly meant, but she cannot restrain herself any longer. She has been a model of good behavior all week. 

“Have you ever been to King’s Landing?” Aemma politely asks. 

Rowena hesitates. “No, I- I had not the opportunity to travel much, as a girl. I confess I have never been past the Bloody Gate.”

“I thought not,” says Aemma. “You have such a good, modest way about you, my lady. One would know you had no experience at a king’s court just by looking at you, you are so humble.”

One could hear a pin drop. Rowena stares, wide-eyed at her. Ronnel exhales slowly and excuses himself for the training yard. Alys looks torn between shock and smug triumph that Aemma is most certainly in trouble now. Septa seems to be developing a headache; she massages her brow, setting down her knife. Father is stone-faced and silent. Aemma meets his gaze for an instant as the brief vindication drains away, then flushes cherry red. 

“Septa Ellyn,” he says, “would you take my daughter back to her rooms, so she might attend to her lessons? I think there are some passages from the Maiden’s Book she might occupy herself with this morning.”

Aemma opens her mouth to protest, then closes it. Rowena is studying the table, shoulders hunched slightly as if in shame. Aemma realizes then that she is ashamed. For herself, to have been insulted by her stepdaughter and had her upbringing so thoroughly mocked, and for Aemma, to have to see Father so angry with her. 

The Maiden’s Book has an entire passage devoted to penitence and contrition in willful young girls. Septa makes Aemma read it aloud from her seat, then copy it down on her small slate, twice in a row. 

“I know you are upset about your travel south,” Septa says sharply. “I understand very well what it is like to be separated from one’s kin, Aemma. But your behavior this morning was reprehensible. You were not raised to speak in such a manner to your-,”

“She is not my better!” Aemma protests. She cannot bear to hear it. “I don’t care if she’s his wife, she is not my better, and I will not-,”

“What you will do is treat her with the respect she is due as Lady Arryn,” Septa says. “Your feelings about her marriage to your father are not relevant in that regard.”

“Father says respect must be earned,” Aemma says, scratching away at her slate with a glare.

“Lady Rowena has been nothing but kind to you as of late.”

“She doesn’t even know me,” Aemma snaps. 

“You have not allowed her the chance,” Septa begins grimly, but is interrupted by a knock at the door. She leaves, and Father enters. 

Aemma sets her slate aside, folding her chalk-stained hands in her lap. He studies her for a moment, then sits down beside her with a sigh. 

“You are becoming a young woman,” he says. “I cannot treat you like a child much longer, to be scolded and sent to your rooms when you misbehave. I pray you are aware that this sort of insolence will not go tolerated at court.”

Aemma knows she should nod her head obediently, but cannot help but say, “Grandmother says the Targaryens like their children insolent.”

Father stares at her for a moment, then smiles slightly in spite of himself. “You inherited her sharp tongue, I fear.”

Aemma does feel some guilt. It brought her no joy to see the wounded look on Rowena’s face, or Father’s embarrassment and anger. It doesn’t make her feel good to see people upset, unless they really deserve it. And truthfully, neither she nor he deserved that. “I’m sorry, Father,” she says. “I spoke out of turn. It will not happen again, I promise.”

“I know,” he ruffles her hair. “You are a sweet girl at heart, Aemma, I know you are. It is not like you to be so spiteful. And I know you are upset you will be leaving soon. But I promise, I will write to you as often as I can, and you will not be alone. You will have Septa, and Ronnel, and your friends… Can you not smile for me, and agree to apologize to Rowena? She is a good woman, truly. She has never had a sister, nor many women in her household.”

Aemma agrees, reluctantly. 

Rowena is still unsure of where everything in the Eyrie is located, and spends most of her time in her rooms, the gardens, or the sept. Aemma wonders if she is praying for a son already. If she was not before, she likely is now. The trees in the garden are developing bursts of yellow and orange leaves, something Aemma always finds mesmerizing when she steps outside. She pulls her cloak closer around her, and slowly makes her way over to Rowena, who is sitting on a stone bench. Not working on her sewing or reading, just sitting. She looks up at the sound of gravel crunching underfoot, and smiles slightly at Aemma, although her pale brow is creased in worry. 

She stands as Aemma approaches, as if summoned. Aemma bows her head, and blurts out in a rush, “I’m sorry for my insolence at breakfast, my lady. It was uncharitable of me, and I will try to be a better daughter to you.”

“I know you meant nothing truly malicious by it,” Rowena says quickly in response, “I- I know you how you feel, Aemma, truly. I lost my mother when I was young as well, and then my brothers when I was around your age- I know how hard it must be, to feel as if- as if she has been forgotten, but I promise, I could never replace your mother.”

Aemma glances up at her, biting her lower lip. She wants to say that it is only partly because of Mother, and the rest of her anger and unease has more to do with Rowena’s womb, but that would be horribly rude, too, and she cannot apologize over and over again. “I know, my lady,” she says instead.

“Rowena,” Rowena insists. “Please, I feel silly when you address me as such. We are not so far apart in age, are we?”

Aemma regards her carefully, evaluating, then inclines her head.

“Might you give me a tour,” Rowena suggests, as if afraid Aemma is about to flee her presence. “I confess I might feel less foolish around you than with the steward, you see.”

She should not say she is suddenly fond of Rowena in the days and weeks following that. But she does come to tolerate her presence, in a sense, if only because she is so unoffensive. Rowena makes no demands, throws no fits of temper, seemingly holds no grudges, or does not show it, at least. She even seems to win Alys over a little, and Alys is notoriously slow to like anyone, kin or not. Aemma attends to her lessons, packs her things, takes moping walks up and down the seven towers of the Eyrie, afraid she will begin to forget it as soon as she leaves.

She takes to spending more and more time in Grandmother’s rooms. She is not doing well as the weather continues to cool, the wind growing harsher at night, the mornings more and more frosty. It is not even easy for her to feed herself much anymore. Aemma splits a slice of pumpkin pie with her, careful to avoid dropping crumbs on the quilted bedspread, which depicts the landscape of the Vale. 

“Well,” Grandmother says, “there are worst spots to be in, Aemma. You could be Rhaelle Targaryen, a hostage of the Baratheons because your brother felt a few hundred men dead was worth his Jenny’s bride price.”

“Did that many really die?” Aemma asks, curiously. The Baratheons’ rebellion only lasted a few short months, and the fighting was all in the Stormlands, but she knows it only ended when Ser Duncan the Tall won the trial by combat against Lord Lyonel. Father says it was a mercy that King Aegon ordered Lord Lyonel’s life spared. He also says that Prince Duncan tried to offer to fight on his own behalf, but the King knew that fierce Lyonel Baratheon would likely beat and kill him in single combat, so the Lord Commander stepped in instead. 

“Yes,” says Grandmother. “And the prince was old enough to know that men would die and villages would burn because he chose his love over his duty. Do you think his sister holds no grudges against him now? She was just a child, taken away from her mother’s side to pay for his lusts. Thank the gods your betrothal was not forced at swordpoint, or part of a peace treaty. It is mark of the King’s trust in us. Maegor is a threat to his rule, however mild. He could have sent him to the Faith, or the Wall. Instead he is stomping out the fire with a maiden’s cloak.”

“Princess Rhaelle is getting married after I arrive,” Aemma says. “Is that why they are holding the wedding at court? To appease the Baratheons?”

“Yes,” Grandmother smiles weakly in approval. “You are a clever girl. Still, it is nothing compared to what they were promised. Aegon assured them their daughter would be queen. They would have influence at court, more power, more rights. It would have elevated House Baratheon back to the days of Orys, or Rogar, when their lord was a ruling king’s right hand. Now they shall have a Targaryen bride for their son. An honor, of course, but a pittance compared to what they feel they are owed.”

“And I shall have a Targaryen groom,” Aemma puts aside the remnants of the pie and lies down beside her grandmother for what may be one of the last times. “He will like me, won’t he?”

“I don’t see why not,” Alyssa Redfort is as brusque as ever. “You are in good health, you are not deformed, you read and write and know your numbers well. You will be a beauty like your mother, so long as you smile with your mouth closed.”

Aemma runs her tongue along her crooked teeth. “But he will like me,” she says, or promises. “I will make him like me best, of all the ladies at court, so he does not stray.”

“There’s a good girl,” Grandmother murmurs. “I never… tolerated any bastards from your grandsire… weak as he was… for a pretty face or two.” She blinks hard, as if warding off exhausted sleep. “And Targaryen bastards,” she says darkly, “are twice the trouble as most.”

It is best not to think about the things that sadden her, so Aemma endeavors to forget her goodbyes as soon as possible, and look towards the future. Besides, she did cry when she was leaving Father, and Grandmother, and Alys, and it is more than a little embarrassing to look back upon. The cold quickly dries her tears, anyways, and she settles in for a very long, very brutal ride down from the mountains. Her palfrey is sleek but slow, a white gelding she calls Ser, mostly because hearing her say crossly, “Do not test my patience, Ser,” makes Ron all but howl with laughter. And he is good company for a long journey; Uncle Ronnel says Father got all the sobriety in the family, and left most of the joy for him. If not for him, it would just be an endless loop of her and Anya and Rhea complaining in turn about how cold it is and how long their journey is taking. 

After the Bloody Gate there are less japes and less complaints, because everyone is on a constant watch for an attack from the mountain clans, who are known to be foolhardy enough to attack Arryn banners on occasion. Ronnel makes Aemma and Septa and the others ride at the very center of the column, and always posts men outside their tents at night. Only when the Trident comes into view in the distance does he let his guard down at all, and then Aemma is cheered as well, for the riding is much easier as they come down from the foothills and approach the Crossroads. 

A few weeks later, her first thought upon taking in the distant sight of King’s Landing, when the trees of the Crownlands are more scarlet and gold than green, and the air is both crisper and warmer than any air she has ever breathed up in the mountains, is that it cannot possibly be as large as it looks. It looks like a painting dotted on the horizon, those distant spires and three distinct hills. The dark, oily swath of the Blackwater rushing in from the sea. Among them, only Ronnel and Septa have ever been to the capitol before. Ronnel was there for King Aegon’s coronation when he was a little boy. Septa was there during her time as a novice.

Ronnel looks pleased enough to see it again, Septa seems as neutral as ever. Rhea’s entire face has lit up in delight; King’s Landing is easily quadruple the size of Gulltown, probably far larger than that, even. Anya looks like she might be sick, but that may just be the dubious stew they had at last inn they stayed at. Aemma is mostly relieved. She’s grown much more used to riding, and cannot say she still hates it, but she is not about to start galloping off into the sunset like an unruly squire, either. She’s looking forward to staying somewhere cleaner than the average inn, and she would be lying if she said she did not care to meet her betrothed. As much as she already misses home, it’s better to finally reach one’s destination than to be constantly waiting and wondering. 

She does not have to wait and wonder much longer.

“Seven preserve us,” Septa Ellyn hisses under her breath, when they pass through the gatehouse (after an extremely hot and strenuous ride up Aegon’s Hill, Aemma should add, where she did not see nearly as much as the city as she might like, for fifty goldcloaks rode out to escort them up, and she could not see hardly anything beyond all those men and their gleaming armor and Targaryen banners). 

Septa Ellyn is not reacting to the sprawling keep itself, and its high red walls that remind Aemma of the slavering jaws of a toothless beast, nor its strident Targaryen banners flying from every corner, black and crimson, over and over again. She is reacting to the fact that seemingly the King and Queen themselves have come out onto the massive set of redstone steps leading up to Maegor’s Holdfast. Prince Duncan is off with his Jenny at Summerhall, and Prince Daeron is off on some knightly quest, but Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Shaera have recently arrived from Dragonstone to spend their winter at court as well, and the others gathered with them can only be Princess Daenora and her son.

Aemma suddenly forgets quite how to breathe for an instant, looking around a little frantically. She is wearing her prized cloth of silver cloak and she does not think her hair is too bedraggled, but her boots are covered in mud and dust and her nails need to be trimmed. Anya and Rhea are not much help, but Septa recovers quickly enough, murmuring instructions in her ears as she is handed down from the saddle. The crowd of goldcloaks, most of whom look very bored with this escort, and Arryn men, most of whom look torn between wonder and trepidation, part for her.

“Take her cloak,” Septa cuts in at the very last moment, and the silver cloak is stripped from Aemma’s shoulders without warning; she knows Septa is only thinking to show off her dress, the very same dress she wore to Father’s wedding just a few months ago, but Aemma feels rather naked without it, warm as it is in the late afternoon autumn sunshine. She steps nervously forward, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself like a child, and curtsies instead, far too early, she thinks, forcing herself to rise again and continue to approach the royal family.

King Aegon has already strode down from the steps, and to Aemma’s shock, takes her small hand immediately in his own as if she were his daughter or niece. 

“Lady Aemma,” he says warmly. “You are the very picture of your lord father, truly. Your journey was peaceful, I hope? We’re having a warm autumn here, but I know it quickly grows brutal in the mountains. How fares Lord Jon and his new bride? We were sorry to miss the wedding, but I am sure it was a fine one, was it not?”

Aemma gapes at him for a moment, mouth not having caught up with her mind. Aegon the Unlikely is incredibly pale for a native of the sunny Crownlands; Targaryen pale, milk pale, and his eyes are slightly too large for his face. He has long eyelashes, too, almost like a woman’s, and at first glance his eyes seem more dark blue than violet purple. Still, he is a handsome man, although with very little muscle to him, almost boyishly slender still, despite being in his mid forties. His hair falls straight to his shoulders, shining like gold interlain with silver in the sunlight. His hands are far more calloused than one might expect of a king. His crown is a simple golden band without stones, the one made for the Dragonbane, Aemma remembers from her lessons. 

“Y-yes, Your Grace,” she stammers out, terrified of saying something stupid or silly. 

“Aegon,” the Queen says, almost scoldingly, something Aemma was not aware queens could do to their kings, “the poor girl is exhausted from the road, she is in no state for conversation.”

Black Betha alights from the steps to reach her husband’s side, beckoning sharply for the others gathered to follow, who all hasten to obey. As handsome as Aegon is, she is strikingly pretty, although she seems slightly older than him due to the husky nature of her voice and the strands of grey in her dark brown hair. Her eyes are almost darker in shade, much smaller than her husband’s and nearly black, and her skin shows more of the sun to it. She has a long nose and long face, but a slender, graceful neck that glimmers with a strand of garnets, catching the light. Her dark hair is bound back in two long plaits, trailing over her shoulders to loop back together at the small of her back as she moves, impaled with a black wooden comb. She is nearly as tall as her lanky husband, and she wears no crown at present.

Aemma curtsies again, for want of anything to say. “Your Grace.”

“Lady Aemma,” Betha says without hesitation. Aemma is unsure if she is in a rush to be through with this introduction, or simply always speaks so fast. “We are honored to have you with us, and I know from your father’s time here that you will be a credit to your house. Your rooms are being prepared in the Maidenvault as we speak. My husband, Aegon,” she takes his hand, as if they were a common couple, and nods to the others, “My second son, Jaehaerys, and my eldest girl, Shaera.”

Jaehaerys and Shaera look so similar they could be twins; they are the exact same height, and even similar in build. They have the same traditional silver-gold hair as their father; Jaehaerys wears his to his shoulders like Aegon, and Shaera wears hers in a braided plait like Betha. But while Jaehaerys’ eyes are as dark a purple as the King’s, Shaera’s are much lighter, almost lilac, truly, although she shares her father’s wide eyes and long lashes. They both look younger than they are, closer to six and five-and-ten, rather than twenty and nine-and-ten. Both smile politely, almost identically, at Aemma.

“And Princess Daenora, our honored cousin,” Betha continues, “and her son, Prince Maegor.”

Aemma turns to regard her future goodmother and husband. 

Daenora is tall and willowy, much like the King and Queen. Her hair is not silver gold or very pale blonde; it is nearly pure white, like freshly fallen snow. Her beauty is not just striking, it is almost otherworldly. Her eyes do not match in the least, nor are they purple. One is pale blue, the other is jade green. It does not take away from her good looks in the least. Her face is long and ovaline, and she has the same arched eyebrows as Princess Shaera. She wears her white hair in not one widow’s knot but three; one to the left and right of her head and one at the back, each bound in glittering nets. Her gown is clearly designed to highlight her unusual eyes, an interweave of aquamarine and sage green. 

She smiles at Aemma, but the look in those mismatched eyes is entirely unreadable.

The look in Maegor’s eyes is very much readable. Maegor is tall for his age; not as tall as his mother yet, but quickly gaining on her, and he only three-and-ten. Had she not known his age for a fact Aemma would have assumed he was a year or two older. She has never seen a picture of Aerion Brightfire, but if Maegor is said to closely resemble him… 

His hair curls, as does his mother’s, in shining silver-gold ringlets, but it is cut far shorter than his uncle or cousin’s, not extending past his ears. His eyes are deep, bruised purple, not mismatched like his mother’s. He has a high brow, like the King, and very sharp cheekbones. His nose is perfectly straight, not upturned like Aemma’s. He is wearing black, which only makes his hair and skin seem lighter and his eyes seem ever darker. 

The look on his face is not quite a scowl. Aemma should say it is the sort of look that is waiting, ready to become a scowl at a moment’s notice. It is certainly not a smile. There is an imperious sort of air to him. Aemma is used to being the imperious one, in any given situation, but she supposes that cannot be when one is betrothed to a prince, for they must be haughty by nature, rather than by nurture, like she is. 

“Maegor,” his mother says, “will you not greet the lady Aemma? She’s come such a long way.” Daenora is using the sort of cautious voice one might ordinarily reserve for a wild stallion or a skittish animal caught in a trap. He does look as though he might consider chewing off his own leg to escape. His lip curls, slightly, and any trace of sympathy Aemma had immediately vanishes, along with any infatuation, for he is truly a beautiful boy, the prettiest she has ever seen in her life.

She ought to curtsy again, but she does not. He seems to be waiting for her to do so before he bows. His mother lays a hand on his shoulder. He neatly shrugs it off, petulant, and bows at the waist. Aemma curtsies before he can come all the way up so he does not get the pleasure of seeing her lower herself before him. Maegor nearly glowers. She raises her chin haughtily, and puffs out her chest so the light will shine better off the golden Myrish lace there. 

“I had thought she’d be taller,” he says, as if presented with a gift which is slightly damaged in some way, or not what he’d expected. Aemma flushes. She knows she is small for her age, but it is not as though she were a dwarf! “My lady, how many years have you seen?” The question is worded politely enough and could perhaps be taken for a good-natured jest, but Aemma is not a fool, and the look in his eyes is belligerent. Two can play that game, and she is so indignant she forgets that he is a prince and therefore her better. 

“I am one-and-ten,” she says, “and I confess I do not altogether look it, but still, I should say all this riding has no doubt made my legs a little longer, and if it pleases my lord I can ride every morn in the Kingswood until I have reached a sufficient height for you.” She smiles waspishly. “Prince Maegor.”

The King laughs, quite a bit harder than she’d have expected. Even the Queen seems amused. Princess Shaera titters, and Prince Jaehaerys seems to stifle a chuckle. Princess Daenora retains her straight face. Maegor looks as though he’d been kicked in the gut while shoeing a horse. Not that he has ever shoed a horse. In fact, she suspects horses hate him. They tend to dislike unpleasant lumps on their backs who have not an ounce of courtesy or gallantry to them. She hopes Ser kicks him the next time she rides by. In fact, she prays he does. 

“Oh,” he says icily, “I see what she lacks in size she makes up in humor.”

Aemma barely averts a sneer herself, and turns to introduce her companions, feeling the hot contempt in his gaze follow her every gesture and word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. Surprise? This fic is still on my backburner, don't get your hopes up about strict weekly updates, etc, etc, thank you all for your overwhelming support on the first chapter. 20 bookmarks on chapter one alone of something this niche is insane and I was shocked to see how many people were interested in this.
> 
> 2\. I meant to cover more ground with this chapter, so like a fool, the chapter count has been updated from 4 to 6. I still think we can make it. Next chapter should cover Rhaelle's Big Fat Targaryen Wedding, Aemma's first months at court, Maegor's teen angst, royal family dysfunction, etc. 
> 
> 3\. I did not want Rowena to be a stereotypical evil or scheming stepmother. She is very overwhelmed by her new marriage and understandably does not want her stepdaughter to hate her. At the same time it's not easy for Aemma to just let go of this grudge over possibly being displaced as heir by a half-brother. Aemma's aunt Alys is not thrilled with her own upcoming marriage because Jon chose the groom based on his Waynwood pedigree, not his money and/or lordship. This has resulted in her not necessarily being the most pleasant 14 year old girl to be around. Rhea Royce is just that catty friend plenty of people have growing up, who can be very funny but who can also kind of be an asshole. Anya Waynwood is trying her best, folks. Ronnel is a good uncle.
> 
> 4\. The Targaryens! I think the the kids of Egg and Betha are always fun to delve into because there's so much variance in personalities. They all inherited their mother's 'willful ways' which has not always worked in their parents' favor (or the Iron Throne's). Aegon is very personable and not all that formal as a king, Betha never hesitates to speak her mind, Jaehaerys and Shaera have some *slight* creepy twin vibes going despite not actually being twins, Daenora is intimidating, and Maegor, oh Maegor...
> 
> 5\. Maegor has some serious Attitude Problems to go with his angsty backstory. To put it briefly, he feels he is owed a lot more respect than he at present gets, and in some sense Aegon's attempts to smooth ruffled feathers with Daenora and Maegor have only worsened matters in terms of resentment and bitterness. Like Jon Snow, Maegor's been raised seeing what he could have had, but does not. Unlike Jon Snow, Maegor really, really needs to work on his filter. "You're really short" is not exactly the best thing to say to your clearly nervous fiancee. (At 13, Maegor is a foot taller than Aemma, it's going to be awkward in terms of height for a while).
> 
> 6\. You can find me on my blog at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) if you want to discuss fics or send prompts, etc.


	3. Chapter 3

245 AC - THE RED KEEP

In Aemma’s opinion, the royal court very nearly makes up for Maegor’s shocking lack of basic courtesies. For the first fortnight, of course, she is very homesick; as exciting as it is to finally be in the capitol, there is the very tedious work to be done of establishing a new household in the Maidenvault, getting to know her new servants, and making sure she is always, always on time for dinner, when she is expected to, what else, bear Queen Betha’s cup, and once in a while the King’s as well, which is always a little thrilling. 

Rhea says she is the last line of defence between the royal family and Blackfyre poisoners, which means they will almost certainly have her head on a spike if she does not taste all their drink first. Septa Ellyn says that is a gross exaggeration and under no circumstances is Aemma permitted to take sips of anyone’s wine, mead, or beer, no matter how good it smells. 

Sometimes she is also asked to help set the table, which is supposed to teach her humility, but she doesn’t mind because all the dishes are so pretty and fine. Mostly, Aemma likes the excuse to be up on her feet and able to flit about at will for the first twenty minutes or so of dinner- Queen Betha never makes her remain standing at attention the entire time- but it is good to be able to spy on what everyone is eating and if they have spilled things all over their lap or not.

Maegor eats as if it’s his duty, which is to say he sits there, ramrod straight at his mother’s side, grimly plodding through every meal, every bite and chew a burden, swallowing stiffly, eyes straight ahead, as if he were chained to his seat. The only time she’s seen him actually enjoy a meal is when they celebrate Princess Daenora’s thirty-third name day, a month into Aemma’s stay. Daenora apparently loves fish, so there are crab legs and lamprey pie and mussels, and roasted ribs and spiced mutton, and chickpeas and sweetgrass salad, and apple cake various tarts for dessert. 

Maegor has two and half slices of apple cake, and when he sees Aemma smirking at him, glowers back at her and tries to maneuver an order for her to refill his cup, since she was bearing his mother’s that night anyways. Queen Betha cuts him off, though, by inquiring how his sparring sessions with Ser Duncan the Tall are going, and Aemma is neatly vindicated. The pig. The only time she intends on refilling his cup will be their wedding feast, and he will be lucky if she does not spit in it for good measure. It flies in the face of chivalry. How dare he treat her in such a belligerent manner? Of course she is not very nice to him, either, but she is always viciously polite in her contempt, and he started it, anyways. Besides, he is older, and Anya says he ought to know better, being nearly a man grown.

It is not every night that she has to serve, anyways. Many times the King and Queen take their dinner privately, in their apartments in Maegor’s Holdfast, and Aemma eats her meals with her septa and the other girls instead. She does not mind. The Maidenvault is a made of fine grey slate, and whenever it rains- and it rains fairly often in King’s Landing, given the proximity to the sea- it patters pleasingly off the roof in a soothing chorus. The windows are all very tall and narrow and some are fitted with stained glass, and there is even a private sept for maiden’s only on the first floor, commissioned by the Princess Rhaena who became a septa after being confined there for years. Rhea says Daena the Defiant’s ghost haunts the place, calling for Baelor the Blessed’s head on a platter, but Rhea loves to lie about those sort of things. Besides, it is not as if any ghosts would bother Aemma. She is not a Targaryen and thus they should have no quarrel with her. 

The only disappointing part is that there aren’t any towers in the vault itself; it is just three floors, unless you count the cellars. So if Aemma wants to stare ponderously out a window and pretend she is a princess, she needs go up into the attics, which are frankly speaking, a death trap of loose floorboards and discarded furniture. The Targaryens seem loathe to throw anything away so long as a dead Targaryen once sat on it, wore it, or so much as looked at it. 

She supposes that explains the throne itself. It is hideously ugly. The throne in the Eyrie’s glorious High Hall is carved weirwood. Even the Starks do not have a throne of carved weirwood, and they are notoriously pompous about that sort of thing. Carved weirwood is much nicer to look at- and comfortable to sit upon- than a bunch of melted down swords. No wonder King Aegon always looks so tense and uncomfortable while holding court. 

But truth be told, Aemma does not spend much time attending court while it is in session, for she is too busy getting the lay of the land, either on the heels of Queen Betha, who walks so quickly it often leaves Aemma breathless, or with Princess Shaera, who keeps a much more sedate pace but who is frequently distracted- she once left Aemma in the massive royal library because she’d caught sight of Prince Jaehaerys coming back from a hunt, and hurried off to ‘see that his bath was drawn correctly’. Aemma is not that naive. She went off to lay with him, because everyone knows that are hopelessly in love and can seldom stand to be parted for more than a few hours. 

Their children are very sweet babes, though, even if little Prince Aerys tends to shriek as if he’s being murdered whenever Aemma holds him. She is certain it is not her, because all babies, as a rule, love her. Even the infant Princess Rhaella loves her, although granted she is often asleep when Aemma holds her. She has never seen two babes so pale before; Septa once said it was a wonder their nursemaids did not regularly scare themselves to death, thinking they’d taken ill or caught their death in the night, given their pallid coloring. 

When she is not being taken for a tour, she is in the godswood or surrounding gardens, wandering from gravel path to path, drinking in the sight of the rapidly reddening trees, and listening to the dull roar of the Blackwater Rush beyond the high garden walls. What is very odd is no longer being able to see the horizon, no distant mountains or snow capped peaks, just those red walls, unless she goes up on the ramparts to gaze out over the city and the bay. Anya says it makes her feel like a rat in a trap. Rhea thinks it is an excellent place to play hide-and-seek, and she is very correct; Aemma could wile away entire hours darting from alcove to stairwell to empty solars, giggling as she rushes past confused guards and exasperated courtiers. 

Once she was playing the spinning game- she doesn’t know the proper name for it, no one does, but it’s when one of them is blindfolded and spun around and has to find the others- in the gardens when she dashed around a corner, blindfold firmly attached, and ran straight into Maegor and a few of the other squires. To say it was mortifying would be to say that water is wet. It was not just Maegor but one of Queen Betha’s many gawky Blackwood nephews, Raymond, called Black Ray, and stumpy Alyn Bracken, brought to court with two sisters to shut the Brackens up from complaining, and Vaemond Velaryon, who is undeniably handsome and looks as though he could be a prince himself. The only thing that could have made it worse have been if Ser Duncan the Tall himself had been there, peering down at her in confusion.

Aemma had ripped off the blindfold to find herself face to face with the four of them, gone bright pink, and babbled out something about testing her grasp of the landscape to hide the fact that here she was, nearly twelve years of age, playing a silly children’s game. Black Ray and Alyn had just laughed, albeit not maliciously, Vaemond had smiled charmingly and assured her that it was their mistake for not announcing themselves first, and Maegor had just stood there, staring at her with a mixture of disbelief and arrogant disdain. “We’ll leave you to your amusements,” was the most she’d gotten from him, before he strode off as if he were already a proper blooded knight and not a lowly little squire. 

Aemma had watched them go, the crumpled blindfold clutched in her hand, then thrown it on the ground and stomped on it several times for good measure, made sure she was truly, briefly alone, and said some very unkind words in regards to Maegor’s parentage, looks, and overall demeanor. Ronnel had found her like that, steaming mad, and once he’d restrained himself from laughing so hard he spluttered, had brought her inside for her dancing lessons with Septa and Princess Daenora.

Princess Daenora is never rude or belligerent like her son, but Aemma truly cannot tell if she likes her in the least, which is most distressing. She’d almost rather the woman act hatefully towards her then this mask of courtesy and veiled looks. Briefly, it has occurred to her that perhaps this is how Rowena felt, dealing with her, but she scarcely thinks of Rowena, she has been so busy as of late. There was a letter from Alys, which seemed to imply Rowena’s blood had come very late and it had been very upsetting for her and Father, but Aemma prefers not to dwell on that. It is not her concern, Father has made that very clear, and she has enough to contend with here without also worrying about what is happening back home.

She worries that it makes her cold-hearted, but it is not as if she does not write home to the Eyrie once a week, and Father said she should concentrate on her education as a lady and making good connections while at court. She only wishes she could read minds, for she would give anything to know what Daenora Targaryen is thinking. Unfortunately, Daenora seems more interested in examining Aemma’s needlework and poetry, adjusting her posture to be more graceful and elegant, and teaching her the various customs and little traditions of life at court than in confiding in her. Septa says that is only to be expected and that Daenora has been under great scrutiny ever since she gave birth to Maegor and became a widow. There are rumors that she was put under strict guard for the first few years of King Aegon’s reign, lest she abscond somewhere with Maegor and attempt to raise up banners in his name as the rightful ruler. 

Aemma has a hard time believing kindly King Aegon would ever imprison anyone without just cause, but she knows Septa would tell her that kings are often called to be more than just kind and genial, particularly when their reign or edicts are threatened. Aemma doesn’t know much about the King’s edicts, only that they are not going very well, because he now has broken alliances with House Baratheon, House Tully, and House Tyrell. Queen Betha has said that the wedding between Princess Rhaella and Ormund Baratheon must be perfect in every way, so that they can truly mend relations between the Iron Throne and Storm’s End. 

While she was saying that, Prince Daeron, who is seven-and-ten and scarcely around the Red Keep at all, he is always off somewhere with his good friend Ser Jeremy Norridge, choked on his water and kept spluttering and waving his mother off, red-faced and snickering, when his mother glared at him. Daeron is not so pale as the rest of his siblings; his hair is platinum blonde and golden in the sunlight, not silver or white, and his eyes and brows are dark brown, like his mother’s. “Yes,” he’d finally managed, wiping his chin. “We will mend that rift right up. Like a split seam in Shaera’s needlework.” 

Shaera had leaned over and pinched him in retaliation, while Jaehaerys just shook his head without looking up from his book. He is very studious, Jaehaerys, in part because as punishment for his elopement King Aegon sent him off to the Citadel for a few years. Queen Betha is fond of saying that he is lucky they let him come back at all, but Aemma can tell she does not really mean half her threats to her children. The King and Queen are both soft with them, in their way, even though they are not little boys and girls anymore.

But Aemma has overheard Mistress Annyse, who runs the household of the Maidenvault, saying that Queen Betha is secretly furious that the wedding is proceeding so soon, because she is still furious that Rhaelle was sent away six years ago as a ward of Storm’s End, and still furious that Lyonel Baratheon is insisting his heir wed Rhaelle before winter comes, because she thinks five-and-ten is too young for a girl to wed, and wanted to at least wait until Rhaelle had come of age. Aemma thinks if she had a daughter, she would never her want her taken away to some other keep before her marriage, and she certainly would not want to get her back just to have to send her away again. So she does feel badly for the Queen.

By the time the guests begin to arrive for the princess’ wedding, Aemma has been at court for nearly four moons, and the new year is rapidly approaching. So too, have most of the trees in the gardens shed their leaves, and the week before the Baratheons arrive there is a tremendous storm up from the coast that splits off two huge vine-covered branches from the godswood’s heart tree. Rhea says it is an ill omen and seems to be eagerly awaiting any sort of clash at the wedding festivities, for Lyonel Baratheon is notoriously bad-tempered. Anya says Rhea acts very simple indeed, sometimes, and that it’s sinful to wish for bad luck at anyone’s wedding. But Aemma knows Anya is just relieved they will not be witnessing an incestuous match, because sometimes she looks like she might be a little ill when Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Shaera kiss one another. Aemma doesn’t, but mayhaps she’d feel even worse about her match with Maegor were he her brother or half-brother or even a nephew or uncle, although that is not strictly forbidden by the Faith. 

But Prince Duncan arrives first, clattering through the kingswood gates with thirty of his men, dress so simply you’d think he was less a prince, more a hedge knight. His horse is very much not a hedge knight’s horse, though, a great big beast of a chestnut stallion Jaehaerys says his Jenny named Tris, after Tristifer Mudd, her supposed ancestor. Aemma had wondered if Betha might be cooler with Duncan than her other children, since it is a bit his fault that Rhaelle is about to be married off so early, but when he swings out of the saddle- he is very tall, taller than both his mother and father, although not as tall as Ser Duncan the Tall- she rushes over to embrace him, Aegon close behind her. They never act much like the king and queen when their children are involved. It is different, Aemma supposes, than when Father speaks to her with his lord’s face and his lord’s voice, and makes it clear he expects to be obeyed, not just humored. 

Duncan looks the most like Betha, of all his siblings. His hair is dark and close cropped around his head, his narrow jaw is stubbly and in need of a shave, and he has the long, thin Blackwood face. He is less handsome, Aemma thinks, than Jaehaerys and Daeron, but he has kind eyes, warm despite their dark color, and he still grins like a boy, showing all his (straight) teeth. The look Maegor gives him, though, from his position standing stiffly besides his mother, is cold as a winter breeze. Aemma glances between the two of them again, but Prince Duncan does not seem to have noticed.

“I heard he left his Jenny at Summerhall because Lord Lyonel threatened to wring her neck if he caught her at his son’s wedding,” Rhea brags that night, bouncing up and down on Anya’s bed. Anya is curled up in the velvet-cushioned window seat with a book, watching the lighting of the torches and braziers outside, one by one. 

“That’s not true,” she says, “King Aegon told him it would be disrespectful to bring the woman he forsook Lady Argella for to her brother’s wedding.”

Lady Argella was supposed to be Duncan’s queen someday. Now she is wed to Monterys Velaryon instead, Vaemond’s eldest brother, who is almost a Targaryen, Aemma supposes. He certainly looks like more of one than Duncan. They will all be at the wedding. Prince Daeron is placing bets on who will snub who during the toasts and dancing. Shaera whispers that Lord Lyonel intends to have a splendid tourney back at Storm’s End to celebrate the newlyweds and ring in the new year, and only his fellow stormlanders have been invited. If the Targaryens feel slighted, they are not allowed to show it. 

So too will Prince Daeron’s betrothed, Lady Olenna, although he never mentions her. Olenna Redwyne is supposed to be spending most of her time at court, but Queen Betha says she always has some excuse to visit the Reach instead, and there is always some reason as to why her travel is delayed or forestalled- bad weather or illness or brigands roaming the Rose Road. Aemma wonders if Olenna does not want to marry Daeron, perhaps because he is the thirdborn son and will likely not get Dragonstone or Summerhall, and mayhaps Olenna only wants to marry into the royal line if it means she will be queen someday. Still, her betrothal to Daeron is still one of higher status than Aemma’s betrothal to Maegor, and you don’t see her avoiding him, do you? If only because he usually avoids her first.

Septa says she must be patient with him and perhaps make more of an effort to learn about his interests, but as far as Aemma can tell Maegor’s sole interest is sparring. He spends hours in the practice yard or the bailey, drilling. She’s watched him from a distance, once or twice, as much as combat disinterests her. Queen Betha is an avid hunter and a talented archer, but Aemma has only tried her hand at the bow to humor the queen, and she was barely strong enough to draw it back, nevermind hit the target. 

What is one curious thing about Maegor is that although Ser Duncan the Tall insists on him primarily practicing with a sword and shield, he often comes out with a mace, which he seems to prefer. King Maekar always fought with a mace, and everyone said it reflected his blunt, harsh personality. Perhaps Maegor feels some sense of kinship to that. Then again, King Maekar also killed his own brother. Even if it was an accident. Maegor has no brothers to kill, but she wonders if he fantasizes about Jaehaerys and Daeron both dying so he might take the Iron Throne. Then Aemma usually feels guilty for thinking that. Just because Maegor is unpleasant to her doesn’t mean he’s an evil or even cruel person. 

Still, she cannot summon up much motive to spend anymore time than she has to with him. Surely her duty is to the King and Queen before Maegor, anyways. She is only betrothed to him because the King trusts Father to check any erstwhile ambitions to the throne. If you think it about, it’s not even about her, because she supposes they think she is just a silly little girl who will perhaps cheer Maegor up, the way Daenaera did Aegon the Dragonbane. 

Well, she does not think it is her duty to cheer anyone up. She is a lady, not a court fool.

Despite the stormy weather leading up to it, and the equally stormy arrival of the Baratheons; big, brooding Lyonel and his snide little Wylde wife and their three tall children- Argella and her Velaryon husband and their toddling little daughter, Laena, grim-faced Ormund with his fresh beard, and sullen young Harbert- the day of Princess Rhaelle’s wedding dawns bright and clear, warmer a day than they’ve had in months, and a pleasing crisp smell to the air of the Red Keep, due to the fallen leaves underfoot and all the recent baking.

Rhaelle herself greeted her mother like a girl years younger when she came home, shouting for her mother and father and all but throwing herself into their embrace, giddy with delight. Unlike prim, soft-spoken Shaera Rhaelle is the shortest of the bunch, with dark curls, violet eyes, and a plump, jovial face- it’s hard to dislike her based on her overwhelming geniality alone. If she despises or fears Ormund, her betrothed, she doesn’t show it, speaking to him freely and even boldly, grinning whenever she coaxes a chuckle or smile from him. The only time Rhaelle’s friendly nature seems to vanish is around her eldest brother. She is not quite cold to Duncan, Aemma thinks, but she is cool, distant towards him. It reminds her of how Alys sometimes treats Father, compared to her easy comradery with Ronnel. 

And it is on Ronnel’s arm that Aemma enters the royal sept. Today her gown, another new one, she has so many new clothes now that she is reluctant to wear them all too quickly and ruin the sensation of newness, is a rich emerald green that brings out her fair hair and her bright blue eyes. The sleeves are pleasingly frilled with dyed Myrish lace and she likes the way they tickle her hands or her neck whenever she touches her hair, which is adorned with matching green ribbons, of course. 

The skirt is thick satin that whispers across the floor and although she knows dancing will be a pain tonight to avoid stepping on her own skirts, it is almost worth it. She thinks she may have grown half an inch since she came here and Aemma feels that the gown makes her look a little older, less a girl and more a woman, even if she hasn’t flowered yet. By this time next year she will have, she is sure of it. Septa says it is nothing to look forward to, and her bluntness always makes Aemma giggle.

The royal sept is far grander and larger than the one at the Eyrie, but she does not think the statues are half so fine; here the Seven are modeled after various Targaryens. The Father is Aegon the Conqueror himself, looking a little lost without his sword or his dragon. The Mother is Good Queen Alysanne, a child clutching at her skirts, gazing up at her adoringly. The Maiden is said to be Queen Naerys, her hair hidden beneath a modest cowl, her hands clutched in prayer. And so on and so forth. 

All the statues’ feet have been rubbed raw from people touching them for good luck, and the altars are heaped with fresh flowers; chrysanthemums and pansies and asters and the first winter roses. Beneath the massive statues, Princess Rhaelle seems even smaller than ever, but stands bravely in her fine white wedding gown of lamb’s wool, a diadem of garnets in her hair, glittering in the candlelight. Ormund wears the customary Baratheon black and yellow, and there is almost an exhale of relief among the audience, it seems to Aemma, when at last he settles a Baratheon cloak around Rhaelle’s shoulders. 

The feasting is raucous because as a rule, Stormlanders are a raucous people, Aemma was always taught. They think their dancing and their music is the best and they always find a way to have their songs played the most. Aemma does not really mind, though, because this is her first grand feast in the Queen’s Ballroom, with its walls of burnished mirrors, and she loves watching the reflections of the dancers in them. She dances three rounds with Uncle Ron and then there is a maiden’s dance, and after that a brief reprieve so the Baratheons and Targaryens can partner up and put on a show of good feelings- King Aegon escorts diminutive Lady Florys, Queen Betha takes Lord Lyonel’s brawny arm without hesitation, Jaehaerys partners with Lady Argella, because it is plain to see that if Duncan goes anywhere near her she will throw a drink in his face, Ormund whirls Rhaelle around, and Harbert links hands with Shaera. 

Truth be told, Aemma has no idea what Maegor is doing during any of this. She saw him looking as dour as ever during the ceremony, still in his customary Targaryen blacks, and she saw where Princess Daenora was sitting until Lord Baelon Velaeryon asked her to dance, but she loses track of Maegor and does not care to look for him until some time later, when she is dancing with Harbert. Harbert is not a bad dancer, but it’s clear from the look on his face he’d rather a slightly more mature partner than a small girl of eleven. Aemma tries not to take that for an insult, at least until he decides to fill the stuffy air of the ballroom with conversation.

“It’s a pity,” he says, “they’ve saddled you with the madman’s son, haven’t they? Little Maegor,” he snickers. Harbert is five-and-ten and boys of that age tend to be snickery. He is not nearly as handsome as his brother Ser Ormund, she thinks waspishly. Ormund may be cold but at least he almost looks to be enjoying himself at present, sharing a slice of wedding pie with Rhaelle, who laughs when he accidentally brushes some crust on her pert nose. 

“He is not very little, in truth,” she says, hoping to change the subject. “Aren’t you and he of a height, my lord? And he two years your junior.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, for Harbert’s face reddens in displeasure, and he is far too rough with her on the next turn of the dance. “Put me with him in the training yard, and I would show you who is the man grown. His Grace would have been better served to see him in a septon’s robes or taking the black, rather than let Aerion’s whelp skulk about court. But who am I, to expect discipline from the Targaryens?” he sneers. “It’s evident they prefer to let their sons do just as they please.”

Aemma would like to interject that he ought not to involve her in his teetering on treasonous comments, and perhaps Rhea might like to dance with him next, but then he says, and now she knows he is drunk, rather than just suspecting it, “I pity you, my lady, truly. Everyone knows Brighflame was a monster to his wife. If the son is half as depraved as the father-,”

The song has played itself out, she wrenches her hand from his indignantly, and steps backwards into Maegor, who has waited until now to ask her to dance at all, it would seem. The question of whether he heard what Harbert was drunkenly uttering over the music is answered by the look on his face. Aemma would be afraid if that look of dark rage was directed at her, but it is not, so instead she simply arches an eyebrow and says, “Lord Harbert, I believe my betrothed wishes my hand for this next dance.”

“I do,” Maegor all but snarls. 

Harbert sneers something back, and Aemma honestly thinks a fist might have been thrown had one of the musicians not shouted for everyone to clear the floor.

As it stands, he stalks off, likely to get another drink, Aemma primly takes Maegor’s very hot hand- is he running a fever, or is it just those dark clothes in this very warm hall- and steps into place before him, his other hand on her hip. “Did your septa teach you to discuss wedding nights with strange men?” he snaps.

Aemma thinks calling Harbert Baratheon a man is a bit of a stretch, but says instead, “Did your mother teach you to ignore your betrothed for half the night?”

The music starts up again. 

“Forgive me for finding this all an excessive waste of my time,” he hisses back.

“Forgive me for finding your behavior terribly rude,” she snaps. “If you wanted to ask me to dance, you ought to have done it right away, not skulked about waiting to jump in-,”

“I don’t,” he barks, “want to ask you to dance. I don’t enjoy being forced to humor a spoiled child-,”

Aemma is momentarily speechless. “I am not a spoiled child!” she cries, which is admittedly what a spoiled child would say. “You- you are-,” at a loss for words, she ‘accidentally’ trods on his foot.

He ‘accidentally’ lets go of her on the next spin, causing her to almost tumble into the path of Daeron and Olenna Redwyne, who looks very, very bored. Aemma flounders back into his arms, incensed. “I hate you!” she spits; they are completely drowned out by the music and chatter around them, and she might as well take advantage of this to voice all her displeasures, of which she has many, because she will not be alone with him again for some time.

He sneers back at her, “Is that supposed to upset me?”

“It should!”

“Well, it doesn’t,” he retorts furiously. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to be hated? You’re an ignorant, stupid little girl whose sole concern is clinging to my aunt’s skirts like a kitten.” The hoarse, raw quality to his voice almost makes her think he might scream or cry, but his purple eyes are dry and hard as broken glass.

“You are a sorry excuse for a squire!” she draws herself up to her full height, “And you will never be a true knight, because your heart is as vile and rotten as your father’s!”

He lets go of her and walks away, just like that, leaving her alone in the line of dancers. 

She storms back to her seat in a fury, and doesn’t say a word for most of the next hour, until the calls for the bedding begin. Rhaelle’s smile falters as the men of the Stormlands close in on her, and Aemma watches how she almost childishly locks her arms around her chest and glances over at the stone-faced king and queen. Then Prince Duncan is shoving through the crowd of shorter men with ease, scoops up his baby sister, and strides off with her, Daeron and Jaehaerys following him. Daeron very unsubtly keeps a hand on his knife the entire time, and although protests and jeers follow them out of the hall, none of the Targaryen princes look back or falter. Aemma glances back at Aegon and Betha, who are still stiff, but with pride instead of displeasure.

Gradually, she realizes that Maegor is gone. He hasn’t just gone back to his seat to sulk, he’s left the ballroom entirely. Aemma feels a stab of smug triumph; good, she’s won, she showed him- but she knows that’s not really true. He didn’t leave because she won; it’s not a game or a competition. And as much as he deserved it, she knows she shouldn’t have brought up his father. Father would be ashamed of her, if he’d heard what she said. If she was going to chastise Maegor, it should have been based on his conduct, not his father’s. It’s not honorable to judge a man by his forebear’s actions, that’s what Father says. He says great men can come from the most unlikely of places. And great women, he amended, when Aemma pouted at him. 

The guilt grows as time moves on with no sign of Maegor’s disgruntled return. His lady mother is back at her seat, clearly wondering where he’s gone, but Daenora must think it would be even more rude for her to also leave the hall in search of him. Aemma fidgets uncomfortably. She should apologize to him. She doesn’t really hate him, after all- she doesn’t think she’s ever hated anyone in her life, even Rowena, and she would probably know if she did. Alys always says an apology is worth less and less the longer you wait to give it. Septa says we must meet spite with kindness, and thus lessen its sting. 

And she really shouldn’t have said that about his father, she thinks. What if he tells his mother? She doesn’t want Lady Daenora to hate her, or think she agrees with Harbert and the others, that she thinks Maegor is just like Aerion Brightflame. He might not be very nice, but he isn’t a bullying villain, either. Last week Aemma overheard him shouting at one of the stable grooms for beating a troublesome young gelding; he does seem to like animals, she’ll give him that. He feeds the ducks in the pond most afternoons before dinner, she’s seen him from afar, and usually soundly mocks him for it with Rhea, giggling together. 

Now she turns impulsively to Anya, who is scraping the cream off her apple tart so she can eat that first. “Anya,” she says, “if Septa Ellyn asks where I’ve gone, tell her I had to use the privy.”

“Do you have to use the privy?” Anya asks around her mouthful of cream. Rhea is chatting away with Aelinor Velaryon and Sarra Blackwood a table away. Septa Ellyn is engrossed in conversation with one of the Red Keep’s many septons over a glass of wine. 

Aemma is not supposed to go use the privy alone during feasts, in case there are drunkards and lechers lurking about. 

“No,” she says, “I have to talk to my betrothed.” That sounds suitably important, doesn’t it? She straightens in her seat. “It’s a matter of grave importance, Anya.”

“What did you do?” Anya whispers soberly.

“I told him he’d never be a true knight,” she decides that will suffice. Anya looks horrified. “I know. I’m very shamed to have said it.”

“You’ve slighted his honor,” Anya says. “You must beg pardon.”

“I must, and you must absolutely not tell Septa where I’ve really gone. Goodbye!” Aemma springs up from her seat, picks up her skirts, and rushes off before Anya can change her mind.

She knows where Maegor’s rooms are; they’re adjoined with his mother’s in Maegor’s Holdfast, the floor beneath the royal apartments. It is horrifically improper to even consider going into his rooms without a chaperone, of course, so she hopes she can catch him in a corridor or one the stairs. Aemma slips on her silver cloak as she walks along, admiring the way it gleams in the torchlight, and is careful to look self assured and haughty, as if she’s running a very important personal errand for Queen Betha, so no one stops her.

She does not find Maegor in a stairwell or around a corner. She finds him where a passing servant says they saw him headed- the kitchen’s keep- and while she assumed he went there to console himself with some leftover sweets, he’s not in the kitchens themselves but in the spacious courtyard outside that’s often used for drying laundry, since it’s constantly hot from the kitchen fires. There’s no laundry hanged out at this late hour, the sun all the way down in the purpling sky overhead. Maegor is standing in a corner, his hands tucked up under his armpits, before a brazier. At first Aemma thinks he’s just warming himself against the late autumn chill- and truthfully she wishes she’d brought a warmer cloak- but then she realizes he’s burning something.

It’s not paper or rags, but something much larger and harder. 

It’s an egg. As Aemma approaches she assumes it is just a replica- she’s seen those being hawked by merchants before, expensive carved stone imitations of the real things, inlaid with jewels and engraved with fake scales. But it can’t be fake. It can’t be, because no replica could look half so beautiful. It shimmers silver and gold in the light of the fire, the flames flickering around it, and as she watches Maegor nudges at the fire with a poker, trying to provoke the flames to rise ever higher. “Is that yours?” she breathes, and from the way he starts she realizes he didn’t even notice her until she was nearly beside him.

“It was my father’s,” he says after a long moment, tone flat and bitter. “Now it’s mine.”

“Do the others have eggs too?” Aemma wonders if she might ask for one for a wedding gift. Of course they will never hatch, but it would be so beautiful just to look at. 

He gives a little shrug. “The King has a clutch of them. Jaehaerys is the only one who ever bothers with his. He lights fires sometimes, too, or has it prayed over.” In the firelight, Maegor seems calmer, almost unusually reflective. It makes his eyes shine violet in the dark. 

“Why are you burning it?” she holds her bare hand above the heat of the flames, watching the metallic sheen of the egg. 

“In case it wakes up,” he replies simply, and without the ferocity she expected.

Aemma swallows. “Oh. Are you… are you allowed to do that?”

“Obviously,” he says through his teeth. “You don’t see guards rushing me shouting ‘Stop, traitor’, do you?”

“Does your mother have an egg?”

He inclines his head. “The two that were her siblings’.”

They fall into an uneasy silence, only punctuated by the crackling of the brazier. The moon rises higher overhead. If a dragon was going to hatch, Aemma doubts it would be from a small brazier outside the homely kitchens, but perhaps stranger things have happened. 

“I’m sorry for saying you were like your father,” she says, when she feels brave enough. “That was unkind. I didn’t even know your father. Or… or you.”

He doesn’t look up from his egg for a long while, before he finally acknowledges, “You don’t.”

“And I don’t really hate you,” she says, “even if you hate me.”

He scowls, then exhales through his nose, his breath misting in the cold night air. “I don’t hate you either,” he admits.

She feels a brief thrill of triumph. “Oh. Good. I’m glad.”

They are silent for a while again. The fire in the brazier begins to die down. She expects him to build it back up, but instead he pulls the egg out with a cloth. It must not be as burning hot as she’d expect it to be. She huddles closer as he lays the cloth and the egg down on the stone steps nearby, and then jumps a little when he abruptly says, “You can touch it, if you want. They always cool down quickly.”

For a moment she wonders if he is trying to get her to burn herself, but then her curiosity wins out. She touches it. It just feels like metal, but slightly softer, almost. It’s hard to explain. She strokes her fingers along the scales. “It’s so pretty.”

“I forgot you only care about things if they’re pretty,” he mutters under his breath.

Aemma glares back at him. “I do not. That’s not fair. You don’t even know me either, you know.”

“I know I don’t know you,” he says, then grimaces when she cracks a little smile at the funny cadence of his words. “I- I should not have called you stupid,” he admits, and although it sounds like it’s being forced out of him at sword-point, it is an apology all the same. “Or ignorant. That was… dishonorable of me.”

“Well… good.” She says briskly, smoothing her hands along her satin skirts. 

“Good.”

“Right.”

Another long pause. “I wonder what color it would be,” she muses. “Your dragon.”

“Silver,” he says, so certain. “With golden eyes. Like the egg. He’s called Aelorion,” he says. “For my aunt and uncle who died.”

“He’s not even born yet,” she giggles, “and you don’t know it’s a he.”

“Well, that’s what I call him,” he amends defensively. “You don’t have to.”

“No,” she smiles in spite of the cold and her frustrations. “That’s a nice name. Aelorion,” she tests it on her tongue. “Maybe he’ll wake up someday.”

“I doubt it,” says Maegor darkly, but then he picks the egg back up, wrapped in the oilcloth, cradled to his chest like an infant or a puppy or kitten. “I have to put it back now. Then I’ll escort you back to the ballroom.”

“I can walk back myself,” she starts to say, but the words die on her lips when she makes out the figures of Ronnel and Septa Ellyn hurrying towards them. “Oh no.”

Maegor groans under his breath, then bounds up the stairs with his egg, leaving her to her fate. Craven, she wants to shout after him, but it’s too late. Nuncle Ron and Septa are there, and neither are at all pleased that she saw fit to not only leave the ballroom but go wandering the keep by herself after dark. Aemma tries to explain that it was for a noble cause, but Ronnel’s idea of chastising her involves picking her up like a sack of grain and slinging her over his shoulder while Septa lectures, which really should be considered a form of torture.

Still, she supposes she will have to start speaking to Maegor more often now, if only because it means he’ll let her see his egg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. "You keep claiming you won't update this fic every week, and then you do it anyways." Eh. What can I say, this is my stress relief fic because it doesn't have a 50 page outline and I don't have to double check the canon series timeline on a weekly basis to write chapters for it. Enjoy!
> 
> 2\. Duties of a royal cupbearer often sometimes involved helping to set the table and serve food. Nothing like that to instill some humility in your run of the mill spoiled noble brat! No, Aemma is not actually expected to serve as a food tester or to root out poisons. Rhea just likes winding her up. It's considered a position of high honor given the close proximity to the king and queen at mealtimes. Also, lots of juicy gossip.
> 
> 3\. The Maidenvault historically held Baelor the Blessed's younger sisters, lest they 'tempt him carnally'. Yeah. Great guy, Baelor! The Red Keep is not one big castle building but multiple buildings in a compound, in case I'm confusing anyone when I differentiate between say, the Maidenvault and Maegor's Holdfast. Coming from the Eyrie, the smallest of the 'great castles', the Red Keep is absolutely massive in Aemma's eyes. (Winterfell, which is even bigger, would astound her). I imagine it is a very fun place to explore for a curious little kid, though. Tons of nooks and crannies to hide in.
> 
> 4\. Court does not just contain the Targs, but multiple other families with the money to stay part-time at court. There's a ton of Blackwoods around, as Betha's status as queen has elevated them even higher. Also a few Brackens, in an attempt to assuage their annoyance with the Blackwoods for constantly getting a leg-up. And some Velaryons, who I feel like are never portrayed in fics unless the story is about the Dance. (But that just might be because we see very few Velaryons in the canon series to begin with).
> 
> 5\. Back at the Eyrie, Rowena has already suffered a miscarriage, which Aemma prefers not to think about at all. 
> 
> 6\. Neither the Targaryens or Baratheons are thrilled. Betha in particular is upset that Rhaelle is being married off at fifteen, as she was nineteen when she got married herself and wanted her daughters to marry at a more mature age as well. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The Baratheons are still very pissed off over the Duncan-and-Jenny debacle. Duncan is specifically warned off bringing Jenny to the wedding, a little similar as to how Robb decides not to bring Jeyne to the Twins in canon. Hence Harbert, who's a drunk idiot, decides to pick a fight about it the easiest available target; a random eleven year old betrothed to Maegor, who is a 'convenient' target whenever anyone wants to talk shit about the Targs in general, since he's not one of Aegon's sons and is politically fairly powerless by design. 
> 
> 7\. Maegor acts like an asshole to Aemma in this chapter, but has also grown up having snide comments about his father's various misdeeds and depravities thrown in his face left and right. So that partially accounts for his hair trigger temper and constant impulse to push everyone away and show no weakness. He and Aemma behave in a very overwrought, dramatic manner because they are respectively 13 and 11, and puberty does funky stuff to your thought process and impulse control.
> 
> 8\. It's canon that Aerion did in fact have a dragon egg; I didn't make that up to make Maegor seem cool. Aegon pretty much lets him do whatever he wants with the egg because it's not considered the equivalent of a warhead anymore; the last dragon lived and died 153 AC, almost a century before the time of this story. Obviously the Targaryens hope to have dragons again someday, but as of right now, no one thinks any of the eggs left to them are going to randomly start hatching. Maegor, of course, holds out hope he might get lucky some day.
> 
> 9\. Maegor, who beneath his prickly exterior does have his sweet moments, like feeding the ducks and naming his egg after his aunt and uncle who died tragically young, is not incapable of being a bit more approachable and open, so hopefully we will see more of that through Aemma's POV in the future. This fic will obviously jump forward in time, too, so don't be shocked if we skip ahead soon. You can find me at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk about the fic more or suggest prompts.


	4. Chapter 4

247 AC - BLACKHAVEN

Were Aemma to have been given a choice as to where she might most like to flower, she would not have chosen a bumpy wheelhouse ride in the middle of the Dornish marches. As it stands, she still has her skirts hitched up around her waist while Septa tries to show her how to properly arrange the cloths when Rhea and Anya come clattering in, just as the wheelhouse is grounding to a halt. 

“We’re here!” Rhea declares, only to grimace at the sight. “Dear gods, it’s like you stuck a pig.”

“Don’t be crude,” Anya snaps at her, carefully shutting the small door firmly behind them. “Are you well, Aemma?”

“Am I well?” Aemma asks in disbelief, almost more offended at Anya’s well-intended question than Rhea’s vulgar comments. “No, I am most certainly not well! We’re about to greet the Dondarrions as part of the royal household and I have blood all over my underskirts!”

“Stand up,” Septa Ellyn says patiently, and sets about rearranging Aemma’s heavily layered winter gown. Outside the wheelhouse’s slatted windows, snowflakes are swirling and eddying on the wind. They are now shortly into their second year of winter, and while it has been a mild one for much of the South, even the Marches can still see ice and snow in this season, and in some of the mountain passes the ice made it particularly treacherous for the horses. Still, the weather has not been so brutal as to give cause to delay or cancel this tourney, and Aemma would not have missed it for the world, even though she could very well have stayed back at court with Jaehaerys and Shaera. 

“You can’t see it,” Septa says, after carefully examining every inch of Aemma’s overskirts. “You’ll be alright. Thank the Seven we won’t have to contend with tents this week.”

Aemma is trying to be more mature and agreeable now that she is three-and-ten, but she is secretly very glad of that as well. One of the perks of being considered part of the royal family is being treated largely the same as them, at least in terms of hospitality. The Dondarrions are so flattered that House Targaryen would bless their small winter’s tourney with a visit that they are turning over their own bedchambers and solars to them. Aemma would much rather that than be huddled under some furs in a tent, even if there were plenty of braziers. Sleeping outside at tourneys is only fun in the height of summer, when the grass is warm and lush underfoot, and it’s pleasantly cool in the mornings. It’s much less enjoyable in the dead of winter, even what the maesters say may be a fairly short one. 

Still, Father reported that it was brutally cold in the Vale when he visited King’s Landing two moons past, for the turning of the new year. He brought Lady Grandmother’s prayer books and some of her old things so Aemma could pray over them in the royal sept. She passed six moons ago, peacefully, in her sleep. Aemma knows she should not be sad and that Grandmother lived a good, long, life, but she wishes she had gotten to see her one last time before she went. It doesn’t feel there that Alys and Rowena were there for it but not her. 

Still, as a sign of her new maturity she was perfectly courteous to Rowena for the duration of their month-long stay at court, although she sensed Rowena was perfectly relieved to go back to the mountains at the end of it, bad weather be damned. She is not someone who would enjoy court much at all; she has little interest in fashion or balls and Aemma suspects the clamor and bustle of King’s Landing, even in winter, frightened her more than it intrigued her. 

There is some smug triumph there, in feeling more sophisticated than her modest stepmother, but mostly it is tinged with discomfort too. Alys confided in her that Rowena has suffered two miscarriages already, and she and Father have not even been wed three years yet. Maester Lyonel thinks it does not bode well and has told Father he must prepare to have no living children by her. Rowena is most aggrieved, Alys swears, and is frightened that Father will send her back to her father’s household, or seek to have the marriage annulled so he can wed anew.

Aemma cannot say she is not relieved that Rowena has not borne a son. That would be a cowardly lie. But she can say that she is not thrilled or contented that her stepmother has suffered so. She knows Father would never annul the marriage, never dishonor Rowena in such a way, but does she? She told Alys to tell her as much, but Alys says it is none of her concern and that she won’t be made to play nursemaid to her brother’s fragile new wife. 

Alys is just annoyed because her wedding date to Elys Waynwood has finally been announced; mid next year, when they say spring will have arrived. She still has a good fifteen moons as a maiden, but Alys says she would rather have it over and done with, so she can retire to Elys’ small holdings all the sooner and take up her life as a barely landed knight’s barely landed wife. 

Septa would have told her to try to find the good in Elys; he is tall and lean with fine ash blonde hair, his eyes are a pleasant shade of blue-green, he only has a few pockmarks, he dresses well. But Aemma is not foolish enough to tread there with Alys, who is so obviously infuriated that Aemma, darling, coddled little Aemma, is the one who will someday wed a prince, the one who can expect either a luxurious life at court or fine holdings of her own, perhaps even Summerhall, which this tourney party stopped over at for a few days on their way here.

Summerhall is glorious, even in the heart of winter. Aemma thinks it more beautiful than the Red Keep, as much as she often admires the splendor of Maegor’s Holdfast and the Maidenvault. In the sunset and sunrise the sandstone of its walls seems to glow and burn so sweetly, and even in the cold it remained draped in moss and ivy, as if it were some living creature that had laid down around a mountain pool and gone to sleep for centuries. Aemma half-expected it to rise up like a dragon at their approach, shaking off the lichen and dead brambles. The two towers in the middle with the grand, stained-glass-windowed archway betwixt them almost brought to mind a crown of its own. 

And then Duncan had come out to greet them with his household, embracing his mother and father and Prince Daeron as if he hadn’t seen them in years, and quick on his heels, almost furtive, there she was, the Lady Jenny of Oldstones. 

Summerhall suited her, Aemma had quickly decided. Jenny, with her hair falling in springing rich auburn curls to her waist, unrestrained by any headdress or comb, her striking hazel eyes flecked with green like the heart of the forest, her face and hands dotted with dark freckles, her crooked nose and thick lips pulled back in an exuberant grin, revealing the small gap between her front teeth. She was not beautiful in the least but there was something striking and strange about her all the same, something that invited intrigue and mystery. Aemma thought that had she been a prince riding along the river, she too would have reined up to speak with Jenny, if only to hear what such an odd girl- woman, now- might have to say. 

And her court! Fools and freaks and cripples, some would say, but Aemma was altogether too fascinated by them, even the tiny little dwarf woman with milky white hair and skin and runny pink eyes. Common boys and girls, little orphans she and Duncan have taken in as if they were their own blood! And so many animals, not just the usual horses and dogs and cats- chirping, fluttering, rainbow-hued birds of the Summer Isles in ornate copper cages, enormous, ancient turtles in the bathhouse above the famed hot springs, a little black and white pig that sometimes follows Jenny around, squealing, and entire flock of geese in the gardens, bathing in the snow, a trained fox Duncan calls Meleys, after the Red Queen.

Rhea says Jenny still makes a living as a wood’s witch, helping the ladies who visit Summerhall dispose of unwanted babes, husbands, or rivals. Anya says if Rhea keeps nattering about witchcraft, she’s going to develop a pox or evil mark of some kind. Septa says they are all being ridiculous and that Jenny is about as much a witch as Queen Betha is a warg. Still, it was by far the most interesting place Aemma has ever visited in her entire life, and it made her somewhat reluctant to think of Duncan and Jenny dying or being displaced, even if it would mean Summerhall could be hers and Maegor’s.

Especially now that Daeron has broken his betrothal to Olenna. Some will say that was a long time coming and one need only look at how he and Jeremy Norridge are never apart to tell, but Aemma was shocked all the same. She’d have thought the King and Queen would be desperate to at least force that one to end in marriage, given everything else that has happened, even if Rhaelle and Ormund now have a darling little boy, Steffon. But some say it was mutually agreed, that Daeron wrote to the Redwynes privately, and that Olenna had no intention of ever letting the marriage proceed, not when she could have Luthor Tyrell and all of Highgarden.

Aemma is not sure if she would turn down Highgarden either, even if the opinions among the Valemen are strictly that the Tyrells are little more than upjumped stewards who believe an excess of money makes amends for a lack of good breeding and dignity. But it is not as if the Targaryens ever reigned as kings in Valyria, now did they? They were just one of house of hundreds, and only survived the Fall because of Daenys’ dreams. Aemma once asked Maegor if he had dragon dreams, and he did not speak to her for a week afterwards, he was so offended. She did apologize, but she thinks she had a right to know. It would not do for him to suddenly declare that he had foreseen the rise of the dragons some ten years into their marriage, and sail off on some quest and never return. These things do happen. 

Stepping out into the brisk chill of the snow-dusted landscape, Aemma is rather disgruntled to see that Blackhaven does not quite live up to the expectations that the Red Keep and Summerhall set for her. That is not to say it is some derelict little hovel, but the walls are chalky black basalt, it cannot contain a garrison any larger than a few hundred, and while the dry moat is certainly intimidating, a cavernous pit stretching around the castle, it looks almost forlorn compared to the stark contrast of the red mountains stretched around it. Still, the Dondarrions are an old and proud house and their coat of arms is quite impressive, Aemma will admit.

She looks around, huffing and puffing in the cold air. Aegon and Betha are speaking quietly together as the castle’s gates open and the drawbridge lowers, Daeron is japing with Ser Jeremy, Duncan and Jenny are huddled together against the chill as if they were still young sweethearts, Ronnel is making easy conversation with Lady Eglantine Buckler and her husband, Ser Ferris Fell, Anya is chatting with Ser Ferris’ nieces, the Buckler twins, daughter of Lord Hammond Buckler, and Maegor-

Well, Maegor is in the middle of a hushed dispute between himself, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his mother.

Aemma ignores the cramping in her belly and moves a little closer, an inch or two of snow crunching underfoot. Ser Duncan the Tall is usually never in disputes, or if he is, it ends with someone dead. It is not because he is an unusually violent or foul-tempered man, it is just that Ser Duncan is near seven feet tall and has limbs like tree trunks, so if one wishes to quarrel with him they’d best think very carefully about it. Once she overheard Ronnel saying that Duncan and Princess Daella gave old Gawen of Tarth the horns. 

That is to say, Ser Tristan of Tarth, the pride of the Sapphire Isle, may in fact be Ser Duncan’s son, not Daella’s elderly lord husband. Aemma has only met Daella a few times and Lord Gawen has been dead for years now. But Ser Tristan frequented court until his marriage and she supposes one could argue there is a certain resemblance, although Tristan’s hair is white blonde and his eyes as indigo as his mother’s, not at all like the tanned and weathered and dark-haired, dark-eyed Ser Duncan.

“-ridiculous,” Daenora is saying in a low, aggravated voice. “He is not anointed, he is too young-,”

“I am five-and-ten,” Maegor snaps back hotly, “Daeron saw battle at eight-,”

“Daeron was a page boy held back at camp with Jaehaerys while His Grace and Duncan went to battle,” Daenora scoffs. “Don’t be obtuse, Maegor-,”

“I am more than ready for a small melee,” Maegor retorts, turning almost beseechingly to Ser Duncan. “Ser Duncan would not permit it if he did not think me more than able-,”

“The melee will be limited to squires and young knights,” Ser Duncan is saying reassuringly to Daenora. “He won’t be going up against hardened warriors, it’s little more than a training exercise-,”

“Do not patronize me, Ser,” Daenora straightens to her full height, not that it makes much difference, “they are fighting with live steel, it is a proper melee, Maegor, I forbid it-,”

“You’ve no right to forbid me,” Maegor has gone bright red in mortification, now that King Aegon and Queen Betha have glanced their way, and Jeremy Norridge looks bemused, muttering something to a smirking Daeron- “You have no authority over my squiring, nor will you over my knighthood.”

“If you think Ser Duncan intends to knight you for managing to keep your head intact during a melee,” Daenora says coldly, “I fear you are very much mistaken.”

Ser Duncan looks as though he’d very much not like to be in the middle of this squabble, but just says, “I will knight Maegor when he earns his spurs. Not any sooner nor later. But the melee will be good experience for him, and he must learn to handle live steel in real combat sooner or later-,”

Maegor beats him to it- “Forgive me if I trust the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard’s insight over that of my fretting mother’s,” he snaps. 

Daenora looks as though he’d stuck her, despite the fact that she still stands an inch or two taller than him, and him nearing six foot as it is. Aemma makes a little noise like a gasp; Maegor must see her staring, but he looks struck too; he must regret what he’s said, for he’s crimson in the face now, and opens his mouth as if it to console his mother, then shuts it. The Dondarrions have ridden out to greet them. Daenora wipes the look of stunned hurt off her face and puts on her mask of courtesy again, every bit the solemn widow. Ser Duncan gives Maegor a stern look, then moves back to Aegon’s side, leaving massive footsteps in the snow. 

Aemma is still staring at Maegor; she all but misses Lord Manfred’s greetings to the King and Queen with his brothers, wife, children, and grandchildren. Maegor finally takes real notice of her looking and glowers angrily at her, as if it were her fault he decided to be so rude to his mother. Aemma arches an eyebrow and turns away haughtily. They may no longer openly loathe one another at court, but she would not call them fast friends, either, although on occasion they manage to have a peaceable conversation. 

Still, she thinks his conduct rather unbecoming, even if his mother is very protective of him. A true knight would never behave so discourteously to his lady mother, particularly a lady mother who has no one else in the world but him. If Aemma’s mother yet lived she would never be so belligerent towards her, she is sure of it. And true enough, Maegor is usually very good to his mother, never complaining of her company or her chidings when she thinks he is being sullen or reckless. But still. 

Now that he is five-and-ten (very newly five-and-ten, she might add, his nameday was just five weeks past, right before they left the city) he acts as though he were already a man grown and hardened. He does not even reach his majority until next year and he can’t really believe he will be knighted at such a tender age, not unless there is another war on the horizon, which Aemma very much doubts. The Redwynes are certainly not about to launch their fleet from the Arbor because they feel Olenna was slighted by Daeron, after all.

It is late by the time they are settled in the Dondarrion’s small keep, but there is still a celebratory feast, or two, to be precise, one inside the castle walls, the other outside them, among the many other guests- Carons and Selmys and Ashfords and Swanns and Grandisons and Cafferens and Fells and Bucklers- the Ashfords in particular are likely relieved to not be at the same table as the Targaryens since it was at their tourney that Prince Baelor Breakspear was killed by his own brother Maekar, in Ser Duncan’s Trial of the Seven. Aegon was just a little boy then. 

At that same tourney they say Maegor’s father killed a horse during the joust, on purpose, everyone swears, and he brutalized some poor smallfolk puppeteer when their show displeased him. So Maegor is likely glad not to be dining with the Ashfords, either, lest someone decide to reminisce. The King and Queen are always lively guests, full of stories and compliments for their hosts, and they flatter Lord Manfred and his kin very well. Neither Shaera nor Rhaelle are present so it falls to Aemma to make conversation with the only daughter of House Dondarrion, Lady Clarisse, who is six-and-ten and clearly feels she it is beneath her dignity to suffer the company of a girl three years her junior.

“When you are my age,” she says, for the umpteenth time, “you will understand these things better, my lady. The stresses of our position, us older girls. I all but run the household here when my lady mother is traveling. Why, I shall likely be wed and with child before you have even flowered.”

It is on the tip of Aemma’s tongue, but Prince Daeron and Ser Jeremy are but two seats away and she would prefer her betrothed’s cousin not to hear the specifics, not does she think he’d like to. She waits until Clarisse has turned away to chat with one of her friends, then says rather dolefully to Rhea, “I’ve made a liar of her tonight, then.”

“I hope her poor children don’t inherit her nose,” Rhea says under her breath, prompting Aemma to giggle and Anya to suck in a breath around her sip of cider, hiding a slight smile.

Aemma had expected to share rooms with Septa and Anya and Rhea, but in this case the Dondarrions have decided to have her share quarters with Septa Ellyn and Princess Daenora instead. Aemma knows she should not be very nervous about this since she has known Daenora for almost two years now and they have certainly spoken with one another many times. But they’ve never spent any real time in private together and she can count the number of times she’s been in Daenora’s rooms on one hand. 

To her horror, Septa Ellyn intends to go pray in the Dondarrion’s small sept, and while Aemma is certainly welcome to join her, she does not feel that an hour of silent vigil on her knees in the sept is something she ought to be doing in her current condition. Also, her stomach still hurts, even after dinner, and she wants to bathe and change into her bedclothes. 

That part is not so bad; the maid assigned to her helps her scrub her hair very diligently for the festivities on the morrow, so there is not a speck of dirt or grime left on her, but afterwards, when the maids have gone and Aemma is sitting on her bed watching Daenora read by candlelight, she really feels she cannot let the silence stretch on any further. Mostly to assuage her own curiosity and conscience. Septa says a lady should always endeavor to make those around her comfortable, no matter their relation to her. And it stands to reason that Daenora will most likely live with them after she and Maegor or wed. She cannot see him being willing to leave his mother behind, even if they bicker. 

To her surprise, it is Daenora who speaks first, though. “The first day of your moon’s blood is always the worst,” she says calmly, without looking up from her book. “At least, it was that way for me. But I was older than you. Nearly five-and-ten when I flowered.”

Aemma flushes slightly, but allows, “It’s not so terrible. And I feel like a proper woman now, not some silly child.”

She cannot quite make out the look on Daenora’s face, due to the dimness of the room, but what she can see is enough to make her flush crimson and avert her gaze. Maegor’s mother closes her book. “My son and you have that in common, at least. Both in such a rush to grow old.” 

Aemma opens her mouth to protest- she doesn’t want to be old, she just wants to be older, wiser, capable and clever and admired by all, is that so wrong, too greedy of her- then shuts it. She can’t say she wants to be treated as a young woman, not a child, and then prove the ones calling her a child right by squabbling and whining. “Prince Maegor just wishes to make you proud, I am sure,” she says instead. “I know he loves you more than anything, Princess.”

“He does,” Daenora sounds almost… saddened, to her shock. “I do not know where he got it from. I did not love my mother and father, not as I should have. He was too mad, she too preoccupied with my siblings. They were eleven by the time I was born. She cared for me, my mother- your great-aunt, she was- but I was just another unnecessary worry, to her. When my father died I was but three. I don’t remember him in the least. King Aerys named Aelor Prince of Dragonstone, and my mother had him and Aelora wed barely a day after the news broke. It was all her pride and all her joy. They loved one another and she loved them and they would be King and Queen and everything would be wonderful.” 

Aemma never knew Alys Arryn, sister to Jasper Arryn, Father’s father, but Father said he met her once, as a very little boy. Aged well beyond her years with grief, he’d said. She’d been in her forties but had looked decades older, after the horrifying deaths of her eldest children. 

Rhea says bad luck can run in families, like bad blood, but Aemma doesn’t believe that. Why should children have to shoulder their parents’ grief? Father never wanted that for her, and that is why he is a good father and a good man, she thinks. Maybe it is different for the Targaryens, maybe they cannot escape their pasts, but it does not have to be that way for Maegor. She won’t let it be that way for him, because Aemma does not want a happy start and a horrible end, surely she deserves better than that. 

“You are a good mother to him, my lady,” she says instead. “You… you care, truly, and I know he did not mean it, what he said today.” She realizes belatedly that she has revealed her own eavesdropping, but she thinks Daenora knew anyways; she is very quick-witted, for all her reserved demeanor. 

“Oh, he meant it,” Daenora replies with a wry edge. “Perhaps not so crassly, but he is as quick to anger as he is to love. His father could be like that, too, but he was much more capricious. Maegor is very restrained. Always holding back. Aerion held nothing back. And he made sure everyone knew it.” Her tone darkens, then quiets, like a light being put out. “He was a skilled warrior, though, and a fine knight. Maekar anointed him at sixteen. I was not even born yet.”

Aemma is, once again, terribly glad that Maegor is just two years her elder, and not five, or ten, or twenty. She has envisioned her wedding day many times, albeit far less after her betrothal was announced, and even when the groom in her fantasies does not have Maegor’s hair or eyes or hard cheekbones, he is never quite so old, either. Father is seven years older than Rowena. Most would say that matters little in a marriage, but she wonders if it still matters to Rowena, that he has already wed and ruled and sired a child, that when Aemma was born she was but a child herself. 

“Maegor is very talented too,” she says, not knowing what else to say, almost afraid to speak Aerion’s name herself, in case Daenora takes it as an insult. “I heard Ser Duncan once say that he will be as strong as King Maekar, someday.” She tries to think of something else complimentary to say about that. Martial prowess is hardly where her interests lie, but Daenora must be more invested, being mother to a squire. “Didn’t Maekar’s shield wall once hold off Bittersteel? In the First Rebellion? And- and he rallied the vanguard, the one my great-grandfather led. They held it together, he and Maekar, and won the day.”

“Maekar was many things,” Daenora says. “But none ever dared call him weak. He was an excellent commander, a fine warrior, and always overlooked despite it. He terrified me, as a little girl. I would hide behind my sister’s skirts when I heard his footfall. It perplexed him, and he’d scowl and scoff, and I’d be all the more frightened. But the fear passed, of course. He was just a man.” She sets her book aside, and blows out her candle, leaving both herself and Aemma in the dark. “They all are.”

The next morning has a brilliant red sunrise, flooding the mountains with bloody light. Aemma would ordinarily be in a much more exuberant mood, slipping and sliding across the crisp layer of compacted snow on the rocky ground, taking the steps to their seats two at a time, if it didn’t mean tripping over her thick skirts, but she lingers instead, sends Rhea and Anya on ahead with Septa, who warns her not to take too long. Uncle Ronnel means to participate today as well, in the lists and riding the rings, and so she does not even have his presence to alleviate her nerves.

Maegor is marching after Ser Duncan the Tall, as always, but then hangs back as Prince Duncan stops to speak with him, smiling sympathetically, before he is borne away again by the tug of Jenny’s bare hand, flushed red from the cold. Her fur trimmed hat is incredibly expensive and incredibly askew, tilting atop her curls. Duncan does not seem to mind her slightly disheveled appearance; she is laughing like a girl of four-and-ten, not four-and-twenty, and urges him on eagerly to watch a few small pages have a snowball fight in the shadows of the stands. Casper Grandison and Samwell Cafferen are carrying on as if it were a battle for true, falling dramatically with mock shouts of pain when struck, urging their exasperated sisters to avenge them. 

Aemma decides she has waited long enough, and when Maegor makes to stride by with nary a word, she cuts him off. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she demands, which is perhaps not the best way to begin this conversation, but just the sight of him dressed in mail, helm under one arm, iron mace in the other, is beginning to aggravate her. He seems so much older; the height difference more pronounced, among other things- her in her dark pink dress, bundled up in wool and dyed furs against the cold, and him looming in his frigid armor. 

He looks genuinely confused for a moment, before venturing, gruffly, “Your favor?”

Aemma yanks off one of her soft leather gloves and slaps him across the chest with it. Is he willfully obtuse? “No!” she snaps. “Your mother! You ought to apologize! She is waiting for you!” She jerks her head to the seats above them, where Daenora sits stiff and still as a statue, braced against the blustery wind. Anya is talking quite animatedly to her; of all the women at court, she seems to like Daenora’s quiet manners and firm courtesy the best, perhaps because it reminds her most of the Vale. 

“I’ll apologize after I’ve won the melee,” he scowls, pushing her glove away. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. If I don’t prove myself here, the next tourney might not be for another year, or more. I’ll be of age by then, and I won’t be looked down on-,”

“Well, I will certainly look down on you for behaving so poorly,” she says, resisting the urge to stomp a foot. Or kick him. She’d probably break a toe or two on his shinguards. “But I must have forgot- you don’t care what I think, do you? You don’t care what anyone thinks! You just want your stupid spurs and your stupid glory, so no one might say another bad word about you!”

She expects Maegor to snarl something back at her, although they haven’t fought so bitterly in months, but to her surprise he is silent instead. She can’t determine whether he is, for once, chastened by what she’s said, or if he’s simply trying to figure out the best way to insult her without impugning either of their honor. Instead he exhales harshly, as if that is an acceptable response, easily maneuvers around her, and makes his way over towards the rest of the squires preparing to enter the melee after the first half of the jousts are over. 

Ordinarily Aemma would be riveted by the jousting, but she is so annoyed she can only rouse herself to properly cheer whenever it is Ronnel’s turn in the lists. They say Father was always better with the lance, he with the sword, but he still performs admirably, breaking Olyvar Caron’s shield and Ferris Buckler’s lance before he is unhorsed by Prince Duncan. Both Duncans dominate the lists, as always, but King Aegon declines, claims that his jousting days were behind him when he was approaching forty, never mind fifty. Still, while it is cold up in these mountains, Aemma thinks it must be nothing compared to the Vale, and the sun shines brilliantly across the gleaming snow and horses’ flanks. 

Refreshments, too- the Dondarrions’ servants are offering red lentil soup that sears the inside her mouth with peppers, cornbread and savoury pastries brimming with meat and cheese, stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls, chewy biscuits made from bitter almonds, and roasted corn and chestnuts. Aemma’s appetite declines, however, as the melee approaches, and by the time the squires have assembled, armor polished and weapons at the ready, she is pushing away the spiced cinnamon orchid milk Rhea offers her.

Ser Mors Dondarrion, one of Lord Manfred’s sons, addresses the rules of the melee; the dozen squires are expected to fight individually, and a group of opponents ganging up on one or two young men will be looked upon shamefully. Blows to the head are permitted but not encouraged, blows to the back will be judged accordingly, and all are expected to yield when disarmed or at first blood. 

“We are here for a celebration,” he says, “not your funerals, so show some sense!”

Princess Daenora does not look comforted in the least. 

Aemma feels a sudden spark of fear. It’s not that she’s ever wished to see Maegor hurt in the first place, but this seems very far removed from training with blunted steel on the practice grounds while Ser Duncan supervises. Maegor isn’t going up against grown men holding back so as not to seriously injure him, like Duncan or Daeron or even Ronnel, and he isn’t going up against giggly little boys, either. Reynald Dondarrion, Walter Caron, Victor Swann, Hugh Grandison, Galbart Fell- and those are just the ones she can name. There’s many others, ranging from the small and baby-faced to the stocky and broad and the tall and lanky. A few of them can already grow full beards. Maegor can barely manage a mustache, and that was when he was sick with a nasty cold and didn’t shave for nearly a week. 

“You should have given him your favor,” Rhea hisses in her ear. “Imagine if he was injured- only a little!- and it was dotted with blood, like in the stories, and he took it off and clasped it to his heart, and sighed-,”

Anya elbows her. 

The squire’s melee is, to put it lightly, rather a mess. That some of the men- boys- are far more competent than others becomes quickly apparent. Walter Caron trips and slips in the slush. Victor Swann’s shield is almost immediately shattered when Galbart Fell decides to put all his weight into a swing of his morningstar, which leaves him open for Reynald Dondarrion to nearly tackle to the ground. Hugh Grandison puts up a decent fight against a Morrigen of Crow’s Nest, but ends up with what looks like a badly sprained wrist. Aemma watches Maegor force a Fossoway to yield by getting him up against the wall with nowhere else to go, only for a squire of House Meadows to come at him from behind with a weak imitation of a war cry.

Daenora’s lips move but not a word is uttered, but Aemma leans forward and shrieks, “BEHIND YOU!”, although it’s questionable whether she can even be heard over all the shouting and cries of pain. Maegor turns, narrowly dodges a blow from the Meadows, disarms him with a heavy clout from his shield, and then is immediately set upon by a sinewy Wyl of the Boneway, who proceeds to run him ragged for sometime, alternatively pursuing and defending, pursuing and defending. The Wyl may still be a squire but he looks close to twenty, and Maegor is tall and broad-shouldered for his age but starts to flag eventually, as the rest of the squires leave the field, relieved in their defeat. 

“Come on,” Aemma is surprised to hear mild Septa Ellyn murmuring under her breath, “come on now, get your footing, don’t let him keep tiring you out, find your feet and make a stand-,”

Aemma scoots ever closer to the rail and is all but standing up, gripping it, as Maegor stops retreating, rolls back his shoulders slightly, and waits for the Wyl to make his charge. Sword taps shield, finds mace, dances away, mace clobbers, shield rings, sword cuts in again, helm trembles, and the Wyl darts back in pain, clutching in left shoulder. Aemma cannot see Maegor’s face but doesn’t need to see it to know his triumph, and watches as he surges forward, eager to finish it and be crowned the victor- the Wyl boy drops his shoulder, it must be injured but not nearly as hurt as he was playing it off as, and takes advantage of the opening Maegor has just given him by lowering his shield. It happens so quickly Aemma barely sees it- then Maegor is flat on his back, helm skew, mace buried in the ice beside him, chest heaving from the nasty broad-side blow he just took to the head. 

To his credit, the Wyl squire immediately calls for aid when it becomes apparent Maegor is more than just winded, and Maegor is able to woozily stand in order for Ser Dennis Swann and Jeremy Norridge to escort him off the field. Aemma cannot see what else to do but hurry along after the white-lipped Daenora to the healer’s tent, where the bored looking maester on duty jumps to his feet as Maegor is sat down heavily on a spare cot. The helm comes off, revealing sweat-matted curls, blossoming bruises, and a lump on his temple. He hisses in pain when the maester feels at it, then retches.

“He’s gotten his bell rung,” the maester says with a dry sort of smile to Norridge, then in a more reassuring tone to Daenora, “He’s concussed. He needs to rest and be monitored in case the pain grows very severe or he falls unconscious. I don’t want him sitting in the stands, either. Far too loud. He needs peace and quiet in a warm bed. And to drink plenty of water,” he says reprovingly, eyeing Maegor up and down. “You fool boys never drink enough, only drown yourselves in cheap ale after the fact.”

A year and a half ago, Aemma would have left him to this dreary fate after ascertaining that Maegor wasn’t in mortal danger. It’s not her fault he disobeyed his mother and acted recklessly during the melee, after all. And how can she countenance missing a tourney? Still, seeing the look on Daenora’s face, and his weak shame, the way his shoulder sag in boyish defeat and the obvious embarrassment in his dark eyes, she can’t help herself.

“Princess,” she says, “I shall help you get him back inside the keep.”

“You should enjoy the rest of the jousting,” Daenora says, but Aemma is already calling on the two Arryn guards that trailed her hear to help them.

What follows is a decent hour of stony silence, during which Maegor, stripped of his armor and sweaty clothes and tucked into bed like a child, submits to his rest and recuperation as if preparing for torture. Daenora reads, or offers him water and fetches him more cold rags to bring down the swelling. Aemma sits in a chair in the corner and watches him brood and sulk and ultimately crack. He is murmuring his apologies to his mother when she opens the door to let in the Wyl squire, who doesn’t seem half so menacing when he is out of his armor, either, closer to sixteen than twenty.

Albin Wyl is very apologetic, and very sweet to Aemma, apologizing profusely for any injury to her betrothed, and he is very kind to Maegor, who accepts his words without venom, although he does look a little tetchy when Aemma invites Albin to dine at their table at dinner that night. After Albin leaves, Daenora goes with a maid to find Maegor some clothes for the evening, leaving them alone. Well, alone save for the presence of Uncle Ronnel, who comes in to offer his condolences and promptly takes a seat by the fire and dozes off, lulled by the crackle of the flames and the inviting warmth. Aemma gets up from her seat again. Maegor eyes her skeptically. 

“Come to gloat?” he winces when a cloud moves, letting some bright afternoon sunlight into the room. Aemma had to stand on a chair to properly close the drapes, but manages to do so without further injury to herself or her betrothed. 

“No,” she says. “You are not my enemy and even if you were, it is terribly rude to goad a wounded man.”

“I’m not a man,” he admits, fingers pressing at the lump on his head. She wonders if the blow knocked some humility into him, or if he is simply more honest when a little woozy. 

“You’re not,” she agrees, then sighs. “And I’m not a woman, either. Next time I shall give you my favor, though. Even if we are quarreling.”

He looks as if he wants to retort, then admits, “I wouldn’t… be opposed.”

“Good,” she says. “Luck is luck, but a lady’s luck is the best kind.” She chances a small smile. “Don’t you know by now that I’m always right?”

He does snort in amusement at that. “I’m a slow learner.”

“Better a slow learner than a fast fool,” she says, a little slyer now, and he actually laughs at that, surprisingly loud and boyish. 

Aemma feels a strange flush in her face, and takes his hand. It is under the guise of offering comfort to the wounded, of course, which is a virtue that all maidens ought to possess, and no one could rebuke her for it. Still. His fingers slowly curl around her own, and she is shocked by how much she likes the sensation of her hand in his. It is not like this when they dance or when he escorts her into a feasting hall. That is just an awkward performance. This is unexpected and natural, almost. 

He is staring at her as if he were trying to place something strange about her face, or her eyes. She thinks she might kiss him, just to see- there is nothing wrong with a single kiss, they are betrothed and even in the chaster stories, the ladies always kiss their intended grooms when they are wounded. Granted, those grooms are always in danger of dying, but they can pretend Maegor is grievously wounded from some great battle, not a squire’s melee.

He swallows. She shivers a little, leans in-

Ronnel mutters himself awake, and Aemma jumps back, although she does not let go of Maegor’s hand. Her uncle looks them over, amused, and whistles the first few notes of Florian and Jonquil. She expects Maegor to tear his hand away at even the mildest suggestion of mockery, but he is slow to let go. Aemma glances back at him and smiles, and gets the briefest hint of one in turn. It is more in the eyes than anything else, but Anya once said love is in the eyes before the mouth in all the most romantic tales. And he does have such lovely eyelashes.

As it turns out, Maegor is not even the talk of dinner, as he feared. That honor goes to Lord Lyonel Selmy’s son, Barristan, who tried to enter the jousts as a very short and squat mystery knight. The boy was soundly humiliated, save for the intercession of Prince Duncan, who agreed to give him a single joust. The boy was soundly defeated, of course, but Prince Duncan toasts him as ‘Barristan the Bold, the bravest boy in the Marches!’ that night, and even if half the laughter is more jeering than admiring, the proud Barristan does not look as if he minds in the least, even if his parents appear less than amused with his antics. 

Maegor just looks relieved when she tells him as much, after coming back from dinner with Rhea, Anya, Albin Wyl, and a tray for him. “Rest assured,” Aemma says, “my prince, you are still known as the bravest boy in the Crownlands, at the very least, to tarry with a Wyl of the Boneway and come away with no more than a knock to the head.”

Anya gives her an amused but mildly admonishing look, while Rhea hoots with laughter, for both Maegor and Albin could have taken grievous offence to that jape, but Albin just snickers and commends her for her bold tongue, and Maegor looks up from his stew with a half-smile she has only ever seen him wear in the presence of his mother or Aelorion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. We don't know much about the Tourney at Blackhaven except that it's the first tourney Ser Barristan ever participated in as a little boy. Unfortunately for Barristan, he was not the focus of this chapter haha. I mostly wanted to just explore a different setting, give Daenora some more character development, show Aemma and Maegor maturing (slowly), etc.
> 
> 2\. Aemma gets her first period just as the chapter starts (there is a jump from late 245 AC to early 247 AC between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4), but I didn't want to make a huge deal of it or portray it as super upsetting/traumatic for her. Mostly because this is a more 'light' fic, mostly because Aemma has been well-educated by Septa Ellyn so to not fear her period, mostly because she is not in a situation where her getting her period means she is at risk of being immediately married off, since Jon has insisted the wedding not happen until Aemma is of age by Westerosi law (16). 
> 
> 3\. I wanted to at least get in some mention of Summerhall because I find it a very intriguing setting, and I like to imagine what life there may have looked like for Duncan and Jenny. I also imagine it being a very 'Targaryen-centric' style castle, maybe constructed to sort of emulate the buildings in Valyria, and definitely a very mysterious and lush kind of place. Jenny and Duncan have a very unusual court there, full of people most nobles would be horrified to associate with. They have also unofficially adopted orphaned/unwanted children (these kids are not considered Targaryens nor are they in line for the throne, but Duncan has committed to supporting them financially, educating them, and maybe seeking good trades/knighthoods/marriages into wealthy merchant and artisan families for them). Also, a ton of pets to make up for the lack of dragons.
> 
> 4\. There's no strict rules against non-knights competing in tourneys, it just depends who is hosting it. Sixteen is pretty young to be knighted and Maegor is so focused on being seen as martially skilled and talented because he almost feels like that's the one way he could emulate his father in a non-horrifying manner. Also, he's 15 and angsty and wants some respect, damn it. Daenora is very protective of him because as Aemma notes, he is kind of all she has. She has extended family but her parents and siblings are dead and Maegor is pretty much her whole life. 
> 
> 5\. This tourney is kind of a spiritual successor to the Tourney at Ashford in 209 which is covered in the early tales of Dunk and Egg. Infamously Aerion killed a horse on purpose during the joust, tortured Tanselle Too-Tall by breaking her fingers when her puppet show upset him by showing the slaying of a dragon, and got Duncan the Tall charged with assaulting a prince for defending her, which led to the Trial of the Seven which led to Baelor's accidental death via Maekar. So. Everyone is really wanting to forget all about that, since a lot of those same houses are at this tourney. Maegor is very much aware that people see his father first and foremost when they look at him, hence him hyper-focusing on winning this melee honorably. 
> 
> 6\. I wanted to give Daenora and Aemma the chance to talk privately. Daenora's life has been, to say the least, fucked up. By the time she was 12 her father, mother, brother, and sister were all dead, her sister via suicide after accidentally getting Aelor killed and then being assaulted at a masquerade ball. Aelor and Aelora were both at one point or another considered next in line for the throne, but Daenora never got the chance to inherit, and instead was passed over for her uncle, Maekar, who married her to Aerion after he came back from his exile in Lys. That marriage was, to put it mildly, horrible and the best day of Daenora's life was probably when Aerion died when Maegor was just an infant. In contrast, Aemma has led a very charmed life so it's hard for them to find common ground beyond a growing shared affection for Maegor.
> 
> 7\. Albin Wyl is just an OC I threw in because I felt like giving Maegor a buddy and House Wyl in the extended canon material is sort of portrayed in a pretty sinister light. Aemma's little joke at the end is actually kind of edgy on her part and refers to when the Wyls had Aemon the Dragonknight imprisoned in a cage and Baelor went to rescue him. 
> 
> 8\. As always you can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/), feel free to send me asks about this fic or others.


	5. Chapter 5

248 AC - THE EYRIE

Aemma does not realize how frightened Maegor was of the height until they have reached the end of the Sky Trail and are past the rocky cliff shelf and through the Eyrie’s gates. There is only one set of them, as there is only one way to go from the castle: down. The Sky Trail cannot be traversed with mules or ponies, even in the heart of spring, as it is now, and everyone must walk one by one, or ride up in the baskets. There is no shame in that, of course, and women usually do so- even in a riding gown it is difficult to hike up, and one slip and you are dead- but Aemma is an Arryn and a Royce and a Redfort and might as well be part mountain goat. 

And she is not scared of heights; she never has been. She finds it thrilling, enjoys the giddy rush of seeing the beauty of the Vale, shrouded in mist and fog, spread out so far below like a tapestry. She enjoys feeling the whistling wind and rain on her face again, after three years in the Crownlands, which may as well be flat lowlands, coming from the mountains of the Vale. Her guests’ teeth are chattering, for while it is warm and muggy in King’s Landing, it’s still bracingly cold up in the mountains, excepting when the wind dies down. She doesn’t mind. But she could not see Maegor, for he was behind her all the while, and once they’ve entered the Eyrie and she turns, laughing a little, she realizes he is white-faced (well, whiter of face than usual, he’s so pale to begin with) and shaking a little. 

Were she two years younger she might have made some tittering jape about it, relished in the attention turned towards her as everyone laughed, and ignored his hurt and embarrassment, told herself he was just being prickly, another thin-skinned Targaryen. Now she holds her tongue, not because she has to but because she wants to put him at ease, she knows he is a little nervous, although he’s met her family before. Instead she takes his gloved hand in her own and says, “To think, every one of you braver than Queen Visenya- why, she never had to make that climb, with Vhagar!”

Maegor smiles although it is more of a grimace, and runs a hand through his mussed curls almost sheepishly. Albin Wyl, Alyn Bracken, and Robbie Darklyn (named after the Darkrobin, although he hates his name, thinks it girlish) exchange glances and chuckles that are more relieved than anything else- truly, she did not realize just how shocking a journey it would be for these southrons. Oh, the North insists the Vale is as southron as the rest, but until Winterfell relocates to atop the Wall, Aemma does not want to hear one bloody word about how ‘hardened’ the Northerners are in comparison. 

Why, the Starks are visiting in the capital now- well, Betha’s sister Lady Melantha and her two children and grandson are, the Lord Stark stayed back- Rickard Stark, Lady Melantha’s grandson, is eleven years old and a skinny twig of a boy who Maegor ran ragged across the practice yard. Granted, Aemma will admit, Maegor is six-and-ten and had five years of height, weight, and sheer experience on the poor boy, but honestly, it was not as if they arrived riding wolves. Really. If there was ever a house who liked to plump up their own reputation as grizzled warriors, when they’ve seen the least war of every other Great House…

She’s broken out of her thoughts by someone calling her name, and then she lets go of Maegor’s hand to spin on her heel and dash across the slate grey courtyard. She has not seen Father since before the winter began, nearly two years ago, and there is a sudden swell of joy to lay eyes on him just as she remembers. There are a few more lines in his face and his hair is slightly thinner, but other than that he seems just the same, and just as strong- Aemma all but propels herself into his arms, and he lurches back but does not topple, for she is still a small young woman and has accepted that this is not likely to change, at four-and-ten.

He kisses her on the cheek, twice, smooths back her hair, which she’d sensibly braided in a crown atop her head but is now a bit crooked, and chucks his fingers under his chin as he did when she was a tiny girl. “Gods be good,” he says, stepping back, his hands firm on her shoulders, “you’ve grown so much, Aemma. You look a proper lady in all her finery.”

“And I did not before?” Aemma demands teasingly, only to be released as Father embraces Uncle Ronnel in turn, and Alys comes down the steps behind them, the skirts of her fine cerulean gown rustling across the stones. She holds out her arms without words, and Aemma hugs her tightly, even if the top of her head just reaches Alys’ chin. They don’t say much of anything to one another, but Alys still hugs like a little girl, so hard it’s like she’s trying to break your ribs, even at seven-and-ten. 

Aemma extricates herself in order to make the proper introductions, for Father has not met Albin nor Robbie nor Alyn before, although he of course knows Anya and Rhea well by now, and made the acquaintance of Maegor and his mother during his visit to court two years past. He looks a little struck by how much older Maegor seems now, six-and-ten and over six feet tall, having managed to shrug off his nerves over the climb in favor of his usual stony expression, however polite his manners. It is Daenora, not Aemma herself, to Aemma’s embarrassment, who inquires as to where the Lady Rowena is. 

“Resting,” Father’s polie smile wavers, if only for an instant before he’s regained his composure. “She will enter her confinement after the wedding, and given her illness a few moons past, Maester Lyonel thinks it best she avoid any excitement.” He glances at Alys. “But she will be present for the ceremony, of course, although we may turn in early during the feast. I don’t want to tax her health.”

Alys’ lips form a thin, unimpressed line, but Aemma feels a stab of guilt. She’s known about the pregnancy since before they left the capitol; Father is not the sort to hide such a thing and wrote her shortly after he himself found out. The unspoken truth is that Rowena barely pulled through the year long winter. She caught a chill and was in bed for nearly a month and a half, fighting off fevers, too weak to eat much more than broth. Once she’d recovered, it was discovered that she was nearly five months gone with child. It is a wonder she did not lose the babe. As she did the others. Aemma fights back another wave of shame. No. There is no shame in it. Of course she prays for Rowena’s good health, and she hopes the child is born hearty, but this may be her last chance to convince Father she is worthy to succeed him. Even if Rowena gives him a son in two moons’ time. 

She knows he can be convinced. She is four-and-ten now, in two years she will have reached her majority and she and Maegor will be wed. This will easily reconcile the question of their household, she assures herself. If she is Father’s heir then where else would they go but to the Vale? That is why it is important that Maegor comes to like it here, so he can be convinced as well. If she is not Father’s heir, if she is not to be Lady Arryn, then she has no right to determine where they live or what they do, for she is just Maegor’s wife. 

And she does not know how to explain her reasoning to Maegor without offending his pride or making him feel less of a man. It is not out of any contempt for him! But it will not be easy for him to countenance being a consort, perhaps, either. He would have great influence over her rulings, of course, he would be knighted and he would command the garrison here and she would send him out after bandits and to dispense justice on her behalf. 

But it would be her rule. Not his. He must- she knows she can convince Maegor that it need not be shameful for him, that she would still obey him as his wife, of course, it would only be that- that well, he might obey her in some matters, too. Surely they can have it both ways. She would only ever love and honor him and he would respect her rule, when that day came. And it need not for years! Decades, truly, Father is but thirty! He could rule for another fifty years, and she and Maegor would be very old indeed. 

None of this stops the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach. She feels like an anxious suitor, with suits to two different ladies, only it is her own father and her betrothed she must win over. At least Ronnel and Septa Ellyn have pledged their support. Ronnel’s loyalty is especially touching, for he could make an argument for himself to inherit, even if that is looked down upon in the very Andal Vale, an uncle coming before a legitimate child, even a daughter. But he has instead sworn to testify to Father of why she is well-suited for leadership, of how she has proven herself capable and wise, or at the very least, approaching wise.

After they break their fast Aemma all but insists on a tour, and hides her nerves by walking at quite a brisk pace, trooping her guests up and down each of the seven towers, through the High Hall and around the sinister Moon Door, where the wind can be heard to moan behind it, a beast beating at its prison. She identifies the distant rush of Alyssa’s Tears from the falls nearby, and Daenora seems struck by the brief glimpse of it through a wide window. 

The Eyrie is already full of other guests, although not nearly as many as when it was Father’s second wedding, and so Aemma is not disappointed when Rhea and Anya disappear to reunite with their families. It’s not been easy for either of them to be away from home for so long, especially Anya, who makes no secret that she has little desire to return to the city after this. Aemma will miss her, but cannot insist on her unhappiness, either. The question of Anya’s futures is firmly assured. Her father formally declared her his heir around the same time that he arranged her betrothal to an Upcliff of Witch Isle. How Rhea cackled at that; devout Anya, betrothed to a sorcerer! Of course they are not really magicians or wizards, those are just old stories, but it was amusing all the same, to think of Anya’s children being half-Upcliff and visiting family on that dark little isle off the southwestern coast of the Vale.

Alyn wishes to see the library and so troops off with Maester Lyonel, who expressed his pleasure at Aemma’s return with a single nod of respect, Albin and Robbie follow Ronnel to the Crescent Chamber to ‘retrieve warmer cloaks’ which really means ‘have a drink, we’re freezing our arses off’. Father has Rowena to check on, Alys has Waynwoods to contend with. 

Septa Ellyn and Daenora follow Aemma and Maegor into the garden at some distance, speaking quietly. The Eyrie’s rocky garden is far smaller than the Red Keep’s sprawling godswood and immaculate shrubbery, but Aemma is relieved to find it still holds the same charm it had for her as a child, even if the trees are spindly and sparse, if the statues are old and covered in moss and lichen, if the fountain dedicated to Queen Sharra seems slightly less impressive after a tour of King’s Landings statuary. 

Aemma keeps glancing back at Maegor, and then finally excitedly doubles back to take him by the hand- how she likes to do that, truly, now that they are no longer sniping at each other! To be sure, they still have their disagreements and squabbles but there is some underlying affection even when they are angry with each other, she should say. And she did kiss him properly on the cheek on his name day, when he came of age and King Aegon insisted on all the court paying homage to a prince of House Targaryen’s sixteenth year, in lieu of a grand tour, and Maegor sat there stiff and incredibly uncomfortable through it all, save when she kissed his cheek, and then he had such a sly little smile that even his mother laughed to see it. 

“What’s wrong?” he says, frowning down at her now. “You’re nervous.”

“Don’t be silly, how could I be nervous to be home?” she scoffs, hiding her anxiety behind a cheery smile. 

“I don’t know, but you are. Is it your stepmother?” One thing she is grateful for is that Maegor has only two speaking volumes- very low and stoic, or shouting loud enough to wake the dead when he is angry. Now he inclines his head down at her, as if expecting her to whisper all her secrets in his ear. 

Aemma purses her lips, but does not slip her hand from his. “Of course not. I care for Rowena, you know that.”

“Are you worried about the babe?” he pushes.

Aemma stiffens, and says nothing.

“If it is a son,” Maegor says, and she can tell he is trying to sound reasonable and mature, “we might foster him at Summerhall, someday. He could serve as my squire.”

Maegor is no knight yet, but Aemma does not think it will be long. She knows he hopes to be knighted by the time they wed, but truly, she does not care if he is still a squire then. What she does care about is- well, this. Summerhall is beautiful. She should love to spend her winters there. But the Eyre- this is her home. This is where she was born and bred. Was it all for nothing? That she should have no claim to it, though she is Jon Arryn’s only living child, and by Andal law his rightful heir? She knows her father might think her still a silly, shallow child, but she is not, she can prove herself to him. She can be what he requires. 

But what if that comes at the cost of what Maegor requires, what Maegor wants in a wife? She loves her father, but she cares greatly for Maegor too, how could she not, after all the time they have spent together? Perhaps it is not yet a great love like in the stories, but surely it will be someday, unless she makes a dreadful mistake and offends his honor by insisting that Father name her heir. How long might he resent her for it? A few weeks? A few months? Years? She can think of nothing more horrid than a marriage spent as resentful acquaintances, like Anya’s parents, who can scarcely tolerate one another. Or Rhea’s father, always off whoring. 

Maegor would never do such a thing- his friends tried to spirit him off to a brothel on the night of his sixteenth, and instead he lost them in the city streets and went down to the beach with his egg, to warm in it a bonfire. He smelled of sand and smoke and salt the next day. But she thinks to be ignored and mistrusted by him might be far worse. Even now he is looking at her skeptically- it’s unlike her to be so close-mouthed about her feelings- and then something in his violet eyes seems to shutter, and his hand stiffens in her own. “No matter,” he says, brusquely. “Forget I said anything.”

Aemma flounders- gods, this was much easier when she did not care what he thought of her!- and then tugs him towards the pond. “Look, the geese are sunning themselves in the pond. And the fish- I forgot to tell you,” she rambles, “the fishing here is good, truly, in these mountain pools, and we will have a hunt the day after the wedding- you must come, you’re the best horseman I know and you’ve such a way with the hounds.” She feels like a fool- what, is he a little child she will win over to the Eyrie with puppies and kittens? But everything is so uncertain and she can hardly bear to think of how close she could be to a misstep. Perhaps this is how Maegor felt on the hike up, while she bounded ahead, smiling into the wind. 

Maegor is polite and they do not bicker like the children they once were, but she can feel the distance between them widening once again, like the tide going out. He must suspect something, must be displeased with the Eyrie, with her. Aemma wants to reassure him, to tell him she has a plan, that all will be well, but a lady should never make promises she cannot be certain of keeping. Her priority must be discussing this with Father. Not at the wedding itself of course, that would be crass and vulgar and word would immediately get out that she is a power-hungry little shrew, but in the days following.

Alys’ wedding day is stormy and blustery. Aemma wakes far earlier than usual due to the wind rattling at the shutters, and watches in dismay. It is not so bad that they cannot go out to venture into the sept, thank the gods, but it is not what she’d wished for for her aunt. Alys was unhappy enough about the marriage to begin with; she may have come to terms with Elys by now but the last thing she needs is rain on her special day. Aemma hopes it does not rain on her wedding day, imagine herself looking like a sopping wet drowned rat with her blonde hair limpid and stringy. Maegor would look beautiful even covered in mud and grass, dressed in rags. He has the true Valyrian looks. She has never doubted her own, but sometimes, standing next to him, she wishes she were a little taller, a little more shapely, that her teeth were straighter.

Especially her teeth. Alys once told her, when they were young and fighting over a toy, that when she smiled with her mouth open she looked like a mule, and while Aemma slapped her for it at the time, sometimes the insult comes back to gnaw at her. She examines herself in the mirror, clad in her warm woolen shift, which looks more like a sack, if you ask her. Her breasts are small, her hips narrow, she has a lovely face and quite pretty hair, but her mouth- she chances a smile, then quickly presses her lips together. No. She should take more care in her appearance- well, more care than usual- now that she is approaching womanhood. No more bounding about acting like a little girl, especially now that Anya and Rhea mean to leave her. No more games, no more silly faces or immature japes. 

She is dressing in Arryn colors today; her gown is fit for a woman, not a child. She likes the sleeves best; they are long and full, repeatedly drawn to a close fit around her arms, so that they make up a multitude of cloud-like satin white puffs from her shoulders to her wrists. She argued over the design with Anya and Rhea for days- Anya thought it was too much but Rhea insisted so long as she could raise and lower her arms in order to dance properly, it was no trouble at all. Besides, she paid it out of her own allowance, and Aemma enjoys treating with the seamstresses herself, so she can be as exacting as she likes. 

The bodice is ruched lace above her chest, but open to reveal a pale rectangle of skin so can wear her pearls. If she were a few years older she might have gotten away with a deeper cut to expose more of her chest, but Septa denied that request, to her dismay. The patterning of sky blue on white is supposed to bring to mind an eagle in flight. The belt is jeweled, garnets on silver to bring to mind her Redfort heritage, which she shares with Alys, and Maegor’s Targaryen blood. She is not wearing her bronze bell earrings, for they would clash, but the belt does ring a bit when she moves. She ought to still wear her hair down but she wants to look serious, sober, capable, so she insists on a simple caul instead, gathering her sandy blonde hair behind her head and smoothing down her scalp so there are no babyish fly-aways. It’s heavy, and the metalwork is dotted with pearls that prickle against her neck, but she thinks she looks older, proper, dignified.

“Aemma,” Septa says, before she can march out of the room. Septa Ellyn is dressed quite similarly to how she was for Father’s wedding, in her formal robes and her priceless rainbow weaved belt, but there are more lines to her face underneath her starched wimple, and an almost softness to her mouth, of sympathy. “Regardless of his decisions,” she says, “you should never doubt that your father is very, very proud of the woman you are becoming. He does not take you lightly, and he knows how well you have conducted yourself these past few years. He could not ask for a better daughter.”

Aemma knows Ellyn loves her, since she has been with her since she was a child of four or five, but compliments are not easily won from her, either, and to hear her say it does bring a flush to her face. “I know,” she says in a small voice, and then off they go to the sept. Maegor’s tunic is divided between midnight blue and white, she supposes in honor of her house. He never wears jewelry but the onyx pin of his cloak matches his mother’s; Daenora is as elegantly beautiful as always in silvery grey-blue, crystals at her white throat and in her ears. Rowena, whose pregnancy is somewhat obscured by her heavy winter’s gown, despite the warmer weather, smiles wanly at her from beside Ronnel. She looks exhausted and has removed her rings from her swollen fingers, her hands gnarled around the kneeler in front of them. 

Elys cuts a handsome figure in his Waynwood green velvet, an emerald-studded iron buckle on his belt, but Alys is truly radiant, all but gliding down the aisle on Father’s arm. Aemma has no idea if Father agreed to the most lavish gown possible to make up for the fact that she is marrying not even a landed knight, but it certainly seems that way. Alys’ sandy blonde hair, so similar to Aemma’s, spills down her back, festooned with multicolored blue and white silk ribbons. 

The high neckline of her wedding dress is trimmed with Myrish lace dyed sky blue, as is her silk bodice, embroidered with an interlocking pattern of white ribbons. Her sleeves are tasseled at the shoulder and chime metallically as she moves, and the arm is bordered with feathers of varying shades of white and cream, not a single one stained or out of place. Her voluminous skirts end with with the Arryn heraldry striped along the hem, again perfectly stitched. She lifts them up to reveal her doe-skin slippers as she steps up alongside Elys, head held high, her Arryn cloak, last worn by Mother, flowing down her back.

Later, after the vows are said and done and they are in the High Hall for the feast, mostly supplied by the Waynwoods from their fertile lands in the valley, Aemma cannot resist in passing-

“I wore my Arryn blues this time, Alys!”

Alys rolls her eyes but raises her cup to Aemma all the same. 

Father wants to hear all about her time in the city and the latest news of court, which has been quiet. Jaehaerys and Shaera have had no further children, but Prince Aerys and Princess Rhaella are reportedly both healthy and enjoying their springtime in the city, as opposed to dreary Dragonstone. That is one seat Aemma would dread to inherit, between the volcanoes, the fogs, the rocky, barren land, and the treacherous inlets and coves. No wonder the Targaryens wanted off that rock. Princess Rhaelle, too, has not yet conceived a second child with Ormund, something the Baratheons are supposedly troubled by. Aemma thinks they are being a bit ridiculous. Steffon is only two years old, and Maester Lyonel has always maintained that a woman ought to wait two years between births if she can, to avoid straining her health. Aemma thinks of Rowena, who has been pregnant thrice now in three years of marriage, and two have ended in tragedy.

Ronnel does his part and regales Father with tales of how Aemma has assisted Queen Betha in nearly every court event, how she has made great use of the library and applied herself rigorously to understanding the history of the Vale through the eyes of the Targaryens. Septa says Aemma is a credit to their house and the toast of the ladies at court. “I’ve spoken with His Grace myself, Father,” Aemma says, leaning forward slightly in her seat, “and he has given his full approval that we might stay on for a longer visit, if you like. A few months, perhaps, I know Princess Daenora is already passing fond of our humble little keep!” 

Daenora is in higher spirits than Aemma has ever seen her, although perhaps that is because she has accepted more than a single cup of wine tonight. At court she is very restrained, as if worried she may be accused of gluttony or excess if she ever appears to be enjoying herself. Maegor is like her in that way; although he is of age and can now do as he pleases, he seldom drinks. Aemma does not think she has ever even seen him tipsy, nevermind drunk. 

That does please her. Anya’s Upcliff betrothed, the one with the silly name, Prudent or Honor or Prosper or something like that, was clearly very nervous to be here, drank to compensate for it, and turned green and ran for the privies somewhere around the fifth course. Anya is utterly horrified and so Aemma has pledged to see that she dances with the best men all night, and has already been collecting assents from Father’s most graceful knights. Ronnel would have even given her the first dance, but as Father is considering a betrothal between him and Lord Belmore’s eldest daughter, he must indulge little Marna, who is barely twelve.

Father is quiet, often drawing back to converse quietly with Rowena, but Aemma can tell he is pleased with her, and that is something of a relief, to see genuine pride in his warm blue eyes, and not just patient indulgence or bemusement at her antics. In contrast to his uncharacteristically chipper mother, Maegor has been very quiet, though. Aemma knows his moods by now and she does not think he is simmering or sulking, only… nervous? She’s not sure. Disappointed, perhaps? With her or with the setting? Does the richly decorated hall, with its blue-veined marble pillars and its burnished silver sconces still seem paltry and low to him, compared to the grandiose ballrooms of Maegor’s Holdfast? Does he think she hasn’t paid him enough attention, that she is being self-centered and rude?

She turns to him just as he turns to her, both of them slightly flustered, and they just blink at one another for a moment, startled. His cup is empty. Aemma once vowed she’d rather throw a drink in his face than serve him one, but she was just a little child then, and he means something to her now. Quite a lot of things, really. He glances down at it as well, and they reach for the nearest pitcher at the same time. If they were at court they would not even pour it themselves but call for a servant, but the Vale is so haughty they prefer their attendants never heard and seldom seen, even if it means on occasion they must pour their own wine. Her fingers brush his, they both draw back, and Aemma blurts out, “You will give me the next dance, of course? It’s The Maids That Bloom in Spring.” Father had a whole troupe of mummers up from Gulltown; Alys loves singers.

He mutters an assent, and looks away. Aemma’s gaze drops to her lap. Albin Wyl is flirting rather badly with Rhea. Alyn Bracken is debating something very strenuously with Maester Lyonel, clutching his cup of ale. Rowena looks like the last course disagreed with her; she’s hunched over slightly, head bowed and jaw set. The singers start up the next song, and their table is a flurry of movement. Aemma takes Maegor’s hand and rises with him, watching as Father partners with Septa Ellyn, who initially declines, then concedes, smiling slightly, and Alys all but marches Elys onto the floor- she does love to dance near as much as Aemma. 

The pipers start up, but as Aemma moves forward with Maegor she hears a brief sound behind her, like a grunt or whimper. For a moment she thinks it is one of the Eyrie’s cats, come prowling through the hall and accidentally trod on, but as she glances back she realizes it is Rowena. No one else has immediately noticed over the clamor of the feasting, but her stepmother has gone very pale save the spots of color in her cheeks, and she is clutching at her belly with one hand, holding onto the table with the other, as if doubled over in pain. For an instant Aemma is almost angry- how can this happen now, it’s too early, all Father will think of is his little son for weeks to come- but then she drops Maegor’s hand and, ignorant of his stunned look, lifts her skirts and darts back over to Rowena, slipping in a puddle of spilled wine as she does so.

“Is it your waters?” she demands, taking Rowena’s clammy, pale hand in her own. “Come on, stand up with me.” Aemma does not even know what she is doing- she has never seen a woman go into labor before and has never attended anyone’s birth save her own, but Ellyn had once brought in a midwife to explain such things to her and Rhea and Anya, as to what to expect when they were someday with child. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Rowena is babbling. It is clearly not fine. It’s too early and her skirts are wet, the stain growing. Aemma is just relieved it does not look very bloody.

Most of the guests have not even noticed yet, but Maester Lyonel is still as sharp-eyed as ever, and immediately hastens over. This is good, because Rowena really is dreadfully tall, and Aemma barely comes up to her shoulder. Father only takes notice when they are nearly to the door, and then he is fast on their heels with Septa Ellyn until the maester instructs him to see to the feast. 

“Be brave, sweetheart,” he is telling Rowena, who rather looks like she wants to hit him, and though Aemma knows he means well she would likely have hit took a swing herself. Men are such children when it comes to these things.

“Lady Aemma,” Lyonel says, “you had best find your way back to your seat as well.”

Aemma sets her jaw just so, pale brows furrowed. “I shall not,” she says, icily, in her very best Lady Arryn impression. “My stepmother has no sisters and thus I am the nearest thing.”

Rowena’s babe is coming at least a month and a half early, maybe more, but it is a quick thing. Maester Lyonel is very unhappy to hear that she’s had pains on and off all day and said nothing of it, and when Rowena looks close to tears Aemma tells him to have a care and send in some maids to help her out of her clothes. Stripped of her heavy finery, Rowena once again looks like the nervous bride she was on her wedding day, her mousy brown hair in a thin braid, biting down hard on her lower lip to restrain yet another cry of pain. 

She doesn’t want to lie down and so Maester Lyonel gets her a stool to bear down on instead, and Aemma has to kneel down in her beautiful gown on the dusty floor, to her dismay. Still, she feels useful like this, clutching Rowena’s sweating hands in her own, as if she were somehow making a difference. Perhaps she is. Rowena has no female kin save her and Alys, and the idea of Alys coming in here in her wedding gown and her Waynwood bride’s cloak is absurd. Almost as absurd as Aemma kneeling here, too.

She is not sure why she is here. She doesn’t want Rowena to be hurt or die but she doesn’t love her, not as she should. She isn’t here to impress Father- why would he want his maiden daughter witnessing his wife’s childbirth. She isn’t here to avoid Maegor, either, although she worries that’s what he thinks, that he is shocked at her poor manners. Even if he did leave her abruptly in the middle of a dance himself, three years ago. She supposes she is here because it seems the right thing to do, and if she is to be Lady Arryn, or any lady at all, then she has a duty to protect and care for her people, and regardless of her feelings on Father remarrying or passing over her for a son, Rowena is still her people, and so is her babe.

Septa Ellyn has Rowena pray to the Mother for comfort and peace, and also because it is easy to count breaths while praying aloud, especially when they pray the Mother’s Chant, which is exactly fourteen lines, over and over again. There is something very uncomfortable about seeing her stepmother’s legs splayed open and her shift hitched up around her bony hips, but Aemma focuses on a scar on Rowena’s left knee instead, asks her about it. 

“Fell off my pony,” Rowena gasps out, “when I was five. Was too scared- ugh,” she closes her eyes as she bears down again, “to get back in the saddle for a fortnight.”

“I fell off a pony once too,” Aemma says, surprising herself with her ruefulness. “I was seven. Then I refused to ride anywhere except in front of Father on his horse for a year afterwards.”

Rowena makes a strangled gasp that might be a chuckle, and then Maester Lyonel checks her again and says she is crowning.

Aemma has to let go of her hands then, and wrings them on her skirt, holding back her grimace as the disgust as best as possible as they go about the bloody business of birthing. Rowena does not scream as she’s heard some women do, but labors in muffled pain, occasionally throwing her head back in agony as if trying to shake something loose from her spine. The smell is horrifying; Aemma wishes she had a kerchief but forces herself to not look away. She is not a child, she has watched dozens of tourneys, seen men and horses grievously injured during them, and she will not look away from this. 

The cord is caught around the child’s neck; Lyonel barks an order to stop pushing, untangles it with a deft turn of his hands, smeared in blood and mucus now, and then Aemma’s sibling slides out into the world, limp and still and caught by a linen. Aemma stares, horrified. It doesn’t even look like it is kicking or flailing. Rowena begins to sob aloud, loud and hoarse, while Ellyn tries to soothe her, stroking her trembling shoulders. Maester Lyonel turns the babe, which is very small indeed, onto its stomach, and hits it across the back, hard. Once, twice. There’s a gasp of air, and the infant mewls, some color coming into its bloodied flesh. It has no hair.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Maester Lyonel says, cleaning it off a little and then depositing it on Rowena’s chest as she struggles to pull down her shift from her shoulders, “You have a little girl.”

The babe is small and thin but otherwise healthy enough, but there is still a hush over the entire keep for the week that follows, the continuing festivities muted. Aemma spends much of her time helping finish sewing the smocks that were being prepared for her infant sister, embroidering ribbons on the hem and around the neck, knitting socks and hats for the cold mountain air. Maegor and Father both leave her be, at least until it is deemed appropriate to name the child. Father chooses Jeyne, for Aemma’s mother and Rowena’s, what Aemma herself was almost named. It’s a common name, but a good one, Aemma thinks. Her sister looks like a Jeyne, small and sweet.

To her surprise, Father asks to see her after the small ceremony, most of their guests having departed by then, not wanting to intrude on Rowena’s recovery or risk the babe’s health with a passing cold or chill.

His solar seems smaller, somehow, although she cannot be that much taller in just three years. Still, the mahogany trestle table seems slightly lower to the ground, the chairs not so tremendously heavy, the carpeting a little more worn. Father looks exhausted, no doubt up worrying over little Jeyne near every night, but still smiles, as always, to see her. He stands at her approach, to Aemma’s surprise, and takes her hand in his as she sits beside him.

For a moment they are silent, just her hand in his, and the crackle of the hearth and the wind outside. 

“I told you once,” he says, “that ruling was a heavy burden I should like to spare you.”

Her heart sinks, although she cannot say she is surprised. He means to name Ronnel his heir instead, and Ronnel’s future children by Marna Belmore to follow. There were will be whispers and disapproval, but it will not be contested. She wants to rip her hand out of his, but finds she cannot. “Father, I know I am not-,”

“Aemma,” he says, looking at her intently, different from how he has before. “You are a great many things, and I have been blind to some of them. I think it is time to put that to rest. You are my daughter, who I love, very, very much. You are also my firstborn child. You are also a woman. But none of that can change the fact that you are the future of the Vale.”

Aemma stares at him, dumbfounded. “I thought you were- this is because Rowena did not give you a son?”

He pauses, then says, slowly, “Even had Jeyne been born a son, I would still be telling you this now. It has been on my mind for some time now. I was wrong to have not done it sooner, to have not made it official. It was disrespectful to you and your rightful claim. By our laws, you are my heir. And by my will, you are my heir.” He lets go of her hand. “I have had the necessary documents drawn up. Should anything happen to me-,”

“Father, we are at peace,” Aemma says, a little shrill at the thought of losing him.

“War is not the only thing that can take a man by surprise, Aemma. I thought my father would live to see me come into my manhood. I was wrong. If I should pass away before your sixteenth nameday, you will still inherit the Eyrie and rule of the Vale. I intend to write to King Aegon and make my intentions explicitly clear, that you shall succeed me as Lady of the Vale and Warden of the East after my death. Maegor may be your lord consort, and prince of whatever lands they choose to give him.” 

He studies Aemma’s expression closely. “Sweetling, I thought you would be pleased. I know I should have discussed this with you sooner, but I could not take you from court, and-,”

“No,” she says, “no, that’s not it, it’s just- I do want this, Father, truly, I… I want Maegor too.” She flushes red as a cherry to have said it aloud, averts her gaze, hoping he is not appalled.

“Aemma,” Father sounds almost amused, to her surprise. “Of course you will still wed Prince Maegor, this will not change that- I am glad you have grown to care for him, and he for you, I believe. It pleases me to know that yours will be a happy marriage.”

“Yes,” says Aemma, “but what if he, I mean, Father- he is a prince. Why should he want to be my consort, and not a lord in his own right?”

Father is silent for a moment. “If he cares for you,” he says, “I think he will find it in him to come to terms with this, Aemma. He has always known it was a strong possibility.”

“Not a strong one, perhaps,” Aemma mutters, “the Targaryens never let women inherit.”

“We are not Targaryens,” Father says, sternly. “And when he weds you, you still be a woman of House Arryn, not House Targaryen.”

Aemma thinks in horror of their wedding. What, ought she to drape Maegor in Arryn blues? They will tease and mock him, and he will resent her for it. If she truly, really loved him, like a lady in the stories, she would give up all claim to the Vale and follow him anywhere, as is her duty. She would never dare to think of him being her consort. Daenora said it truly, he is as quick to anger as he is to love. Will it shame him and his pride, that he will be known as ‘the Lady Aemma Arryn’s princely husband’? Even if he is someday granted his own keep, they would still have to divide their time between two households. 

Worse, their children will take her name, not his, or at the very least, their first son and daughters will. Will he be content to know that his children will not even have his name? She cannot give a son who will inherit the Vale a Targaryen name, cannot have the boy anointed as Maekar or Aegon Arryn, that would be absurd. Even Baelor would be pushing the letter. He might think he can withstand it now, but in time, when he is a man of twenty, thirty, forty, will he not resent her for taking that from him?

“Aemma,” Father says, “such things have happened before. Perhaps it is an usual for a Targaryen to marry into this situation, but it need not be a cause for strife between you two, so long as you are honest and considerate of him.”

Aemma nods, smiles, thanks him profusely- how can she not? This is all she has ever wanted, to be recognized, to be known as his heir. But she cannot say she is as thrilled as she should by rights be, when she leaves his solar. Maegor will know sooner or later whether she tells him or not. But for now, she retreats to the nursery, away from the distant sounds of sparring in the yard- she can hear his mace reverberating onto a metal shield, a triumphant gong like a bell- and looks in on her sister. In sleep, Jeyne really is a wondrous little thing, swaddled and pink, eyes closed in content. Aemma pokes at her little feet, rocking the cradle that was once hers very slowly, and wonders why she still feels some small jab of jealousy for a child that caused her so much stress and woe. Jeyne will not be lady of anything. But Jeyne will also never have to choose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. I promise next chapter (the last chapter) we'll see significantly more interaction directly between Maegor and Aemma! This is just the stage of the period drama where there is a lot of miscommunication and uncertainty between the heroine and her love, and both worry the other is having doubts or is upset with them, etc. This fic will have a happy ending. 
> 
> 2\. Aemma comes across as a bit more insecure and anxious in this chapter because of both the stress of Rowena possibly having a son, wanting to appeal to her father as to why she should be his heir, and also feeling as though she might be 'betraying' or hurting Maegor by doing so. Her main concern is that Maegor will be upset to realize that while he is technically not prince of anything, Aemma stands to wield considerable political power and control the entire Vale. While he would still play an active role in this, Aemma is keenly aware that Targaryen men are not used to being consorts to their wives, and worries that Maegor will take it as a slight to his pride, especially since their children will have the Arryn name. 
> 
> 3\. Also in general Maegor is now 16 and Aemma is 14, and both are in the awkward 'I think you really like me, but I'm not quite sure' stage which makes them both very awkward and self conscious. While they are comfortable enough to take walks together and hold hands, they are both shying away from any 'heavy' discussions as they are afraid to 'ruin' their tentative romantic feelings. They are also both less self-involved and trying to be considerate of each other's feelings, but don't always express that in the best way. 
> 
> 4\. Daenora quite likes the Eyrie!
> 
> 5\. Anya's Upcliff betrothed is named Prosper after Prospero from the Tempest. I have no regrets. 
> 
> 6\. In canon Rowena died of a winter chill, but this is not canon, so I feel free to do whatever, including giving Aemma a baby sister.
> 
> 7.You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/).


	6. Chapter 6

249 AC - THE KINGSWOOD

The cloth of silver cloak is perhaps not the most practical article of clothing to be wearing over her riding habit while on a hunt, but in Aemma’s defense, it will certainly prevent anyone from mistaking her for an animal moving in the brush. Besides, half the fun of a fox hunt isn’t even whether you catch anything, it’s an excuse to lose your chaperones. A few of the women will still ride side-saddle, but most will not, abandoning propriety in the interest of keeping up with the pack. Aemma should not say she loves horses now, and she still dreads long rides for travel, but the occasional hunt or sojourn out into the Kingswood is fine enough, especially now that they are in the full bloom of a southern spring. The sunlight seems to cling to the trees and sink into the ground, giving everything a slightly hazy glow, even though it is still morning. 

By this time next year, when she and Maegor wed on the first day of the new year, for their official date was announced by the King and Queen last week, it will be summer. That is what the maesters predict, at least, and that by the year 252 after Aegon’s Conquest it will be winter once again, just five years after the last winter. Time seems to be moving far too swiftly, to her growing alarm. The spring is flying by at a rapid rate. By the time they left the Eyrie, three moons after Alys’ eventful wedding and Jeyne’s birth, the snow in the valleys had completely melted and the lowlands were lush and verdant once more. 

It makes sense, then, that the mountain clans would begin to raid, and Aemma saw her first, quite a bit closer than she would have liked when the Black Ears and the Redsmiths ambushed their party on the High Road. It all happened very quickly, but she saw everything from astride Ser. The Black Ears numbered forty, the Redsmiths thirty, but they had an honor guard of sixty and so Aemma should say it was a very fair fight. Well, not quite fair as the clansmen rarely have steel, or even bronze. Crude clubs and axes can do plenty to terrorize common travelers taken by surprise, but knights are more like to laugh themselves silly at the sight.

No one was laughing then, although Aemma thinks she was more shocked than terrified, and almost indignant at their gall- it figures that just when she is announced as Father’s heir, the clans should decide to make trouble! If they think she will stand idly by and let them savage her people when she is Lady Arryn, they are sorely mistaken. She may never lead men to war herself, but she is more than capable of seeing justice done, she knows she is. Still, there was a very big fuss because she and Septa Ellyn and Princess Daenora were among the few women of the group, as as the clans are known to take women in raid, and so it was a series of men screaming orders at her and crowding around to encircle her, which nearly set Ser to bucking. Luckily she calmed him, but she should have been mortified if she was thrown from her horse and trampled. What a humiliating way to die.

Once the wildlings had lost a good number of their men they took off back into the foothills, on horse and on foot, and Uncle Ronnel and some of his men gave chase for a short while, before looping back. They didn’t lose any of their own men, and the injuries were minimal, so all in all Aemma should say it was a lucky series of events, and certainly something to write Rhea and Anya about- it figures, too, that the once they are not traveling with her, something like this should happen! Everyone was giddy and talkative afterwards, from nerves, Aemma assumes, for even hardened men who’ve seen half a hundred battles will still be wound up after a skirmish. The weather was still fine so they made their camp just outside near a stream, and while Aemma fussed over Alyn Bracken who had a gash in his hand, she nearly missed Ronnel taking Maegor aside and declaring an intention to knight him.

Aemma had nearly dropped the rag she was holding- it has always been known that Ser Duncan himself would be the one to knight Maegor, as he knighted King Aegon, as he knighted Prince Duncan- but any knight can make a knight, and Ronnel has been a knight for several years now, and is certainly as capable of judging a man worthy as the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Daenora once mentioned to Aemma, during that very visit to the Vale, that Queen Betha had on a few occasions tried to broach the idea of Maegor someday entering the Kingsguard himself as a leal man for his uncle, but King Aegon had been adverse to pushing Maegor into the brotherhood. 

But she’d half expected Maegor to refuse, anyways, even though he’d conducted himself very admirably and Albin and Alyn were both newly knighted themselves, albeit both at tourneys, not from actual combat. Yet he’d agreed, out of eagerness or shock or just seeing no point in delaying his own knighthood just so he might receive his holy oils in the royal sept. They only Septa Ellyn’s oils with them, and those nearly finished, so Aemma had been tasked with filling them up with water from the stream- holy water, she might add, Septa said the Mother’s Chant over it, and purified it with a few drops of water from Maidenpool she’d collected on a pilgrimage years ago. 

And Maegor had knelt on the banks, his fine silver gold hair a rumpled, sweaty mess, his face still red from exertion, and his left arm still shaking and likely sore from blocking two axe blows in a row when he leapt to the defence of his mother. He had to take off all his armor and kneel barefoot in just his tunic and breeches, with his armor, sword, and shield in a pile with some hastily lit candles around it in the dirt. Then he’d had to pray aloud an invocation to the Father under Septa Ellyn’s supervision, since they had no attending septon, and then finally- Mother’s bones, they certainly liked to drag these things out!- Ronnel had stepped forward, unsheathed his freshly cleaned sword, tapped Maegor’s right shoulder, and said-

“In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women. In the name of the Smith I charge you to build up what is broken. In the name of the Crone I charge you to choose wisely.” Then there had been a beat of silence for the Stranger, and the sword had gone to the left shoulder, and Ronnel had said, suddenly seeming a grave, mature man and not Aemma’s carefree uncle with his tousled auburn curls and his freckled grin, “Rise, Ser Maegor of House Targaryen.”

And it was not that Aemma was not or is not still thrilled for him- Maegor surely deserves a knighthood, whether it came from her uncle or Ser Duncan, and she knows he will always uphold his vows, he is not the sort of boy- man, now- to take such things lightly. But it is just that- well, there never seemed to be any time to talk about it, beyond the very public congratulations and accolades, because then by the time they’d returned to the city there was trouble in the Westerlands again and everyone was saying Lord Tytos was too busy drinking and hosting balls to be bothered to get off his golden arse- Daeron’s words, not hers!- to settle the bandits on the Gold Road. 

And then Aegon was dispatching men to attend to it, and of course Maegor was invited to join them, being newly knighted, and Aemma wishes they’d had even a few weeks beforehand, it was all so sudden, and then he was gone for three moons to the West, and she got just two scant letters! To be clear, Maegor has never been one for letters, although he does have very neat penmanship, and so she was not heartbroken, only disappointed, and then when he returned it was nearly the year’s end and there were festivities and celebrations at court and Aemma had own duties to attend to- she cannot be seen to drop everything for her betrothed, not when she is referred to as her father’s heir, now!

So now it is the first week of the new year and their wedding date has been announced and while of course she is happy, and she hopes he is too, and really she cannot complain, the past year brought nothing but successes for her, for both of them, surely, she still feels as though- well, is this to be the rest of their lives, now that they both have their respective duties? Polite exchanges, brief smiles, fond glances, and no more than that? What, will she be seated at Father’s side all day, every day, and only see Maegor at meal times? Will he be rushing off for every fight leaving her behind with a kiss on the cheek, or sitting and stewing while she is meetings that last for hours and hours behind closed solar doors?

Septa would say that fond regard and brief moments of affection are far more than many women receive in a marriage, but Aemma cannot recall a time in her life in which she was ever truly willing to settle. 

So truly, on that sunny day she is glad she was remiss in her prayers at service the day before, because the Smith frowned down at her and Ser loses a shoe less than half an hour into the hunt, before the hounds have even caught the scent. After some scattered debate, the majority of the hunting party- Blackwoods, mostly, and a few of Jenny and Duncan’s orphans brought to court to make something of themselves, and vain, haughty Ardrian Celtigar who Rhea is now betrothed to, and Daeron and Jeremy and Jaehaerys and Shaera- they all ride on, which leaves a soundly embarrassed Aemma, who must look a very poor horsewoman indeed, several bored and disappointed guards, and Maegor, who brought his own stallion back round to come back for her when Albin told him what had happened.

He finds Aemma pouting under the shade of an oak tree, having removed her gauzy cloak and hung it over a low branch, slumped in a very unladylike manner against the broad trunk. Even the sight of her spotless black riding boots annoys her. Her appearance is immaculate- the opposite of how it should look on a hunt. Nor was she looking forward to being mud-spattered and windblown, but- some part of her, she will admit, felt she was… proving herself to him today, that she could still be… fun and youthful and the spirited girl he was betrothed to, not some duty-bound, sober, responsible… lord’s heir. 

Maegor does not even clamber down from the saddle, instead extending a hand to her. “You can ride in front of me, I’ll take you back.”

“No,” Aemma snaps, with more ferocity than she’d intended. The guards playing dice some distance away, although still well within sight, do not even look up, by now used to her occasional tempers. 

Maegor frowns, some color flaring into his own cheeks, and swings down from his horse to inspect Ser’s shoeless hoof. “His leg isn’t injured, Aemma, he’ll be fine. We can tie the reins to mine and walk him back as slow as you like. The smith will set this to rights- you might even be able to rejoin the hunt.”

Ugh, when did he become so sensible! She almost misses the days when it was she contending with his sour moods, not the other way around.

“You should rejoin the others,” she says instead. “I can wait here for a time or ride back with one of my men. There is no sense in both of us-,” she cuts herself off as Maegor scowls and turns back to his horse, making to climb back into the saddle without another word for her. “Maegor, wait!”

He doesn’t shake off her hand, to her relief, but when he looks back at her his eyes are hard as amethysts. “Then make up your mind whether you want me here or not. You’re acting like a child. No one is going to care whether you miss part of a fox hunt. There will be others.”

“How can you think I don’t- I only don’t want you to give up even more on my account-,”

“Even more of what?” he demands angrily. “Explain to me, Aemma, what exactly I am giving up. I can’t stand it when you look at me like that.”

“Like what?” she retorts, pink in the face herself. “I-,”

“Like you pity me!” he explodes.

One of the guards raises their head slightly. It is Dirk, who Ronnel sometimes goes drinking with. Aemma glances at him and he immediately lowers his head again, judging it not worth getting in the middle of their row, she expects.

“You think I pity you?” she asks instead, unsure she is more horrified than she is furious. “Maegor, I do not- is that what you think of me, truly, that I pity you, that I look down on you- you are a prince! You will always be of a higher rank than me, that’s not-,”

“No,” he says. “No. What am I prince of, Aemma? Tell me.” He barely pauses for a breath. “Nothing. I am prince of the end of the high table, the back seats at court, of- of trailing after Daeron like one of his household knights, honored to be invited to put down some bandits- were I a brother, I would not have had to wait for permission to join, it would have been no question-,”

“Daeron does not degrade you,” Aemma scoffs, “Daeron can be a cocky fool but he values your company, you cannot say he- half his friends are hedge knights or sellswords, these days-,”

“And I am akin to them?”

“No!” she throws up her hands. “What do you want me to say, to heap praises upon you- you are a royal prince, Maegor! You are born of the ruling house! You come from dragon lords! Your grandfather was a king! Your uncle is the king, you- you are a knight-,”

“I am a knight,” he says. “I am a knight and despite my blood you marrying me is no different than if you had fallen in love with some man like your aunt’s husband, Ser Elys. I am a household knight. That it is the royal household- that makes no difference when it is the Eyrie that we will live at. I bring nothing. No lands. My wealth is more than some but no great fortune, not as it would be if you were marrying a Baratheon, or a Tyrell, or a Celtigar-,”

“You think I care about that?” Aemma cries. “I don’t- I don’t want you for your titles or your money, I want-,”

“I don’t want you to care for me in spite of my circumstances of birth! I could have-,” he stops himself, as he always has, even here, with no Targaryen guards present, he will not dare say it aloud, the Kingswood could be full of spies, for all either of them know. “I could have had much more to offer you,” he says. “In another life. So much more.”

Her eyes fill with tears, to her dismay, but she will not cry in front of him, not when he already thinks she acts like a child. “You- you would rather that-,” Than me? What is she going to ask? If he would rather be king in another life than wed her? Of course he would. The answer is obvious. Men would throw over their wives of thirty years to be king. Maegor and her are not even married. Their betrothal is only four years old. 

“No,” he says, “Aemma, no, I did not- that’s not what I meant-,”

“Then tell me what you mean!”

He is silent. Aemma is used to this; he has always been one to clamp up when he feels that he might otherwise light up with rage, but that does not mean she likes it.

“Then I will tell you what I mean,” she says. “I know- I am not an ideal wife, I- I know it cannot be easy for you to countenance the idea of… of my inheritance, or that I will… that any children we have will bear my name, and that they will be raised by my kin, not yours, I… Maegor, I know that is not the natural way of a marriage, I know you think I am childish and… and selfish but I do… I recognize that this must be difficult for you, and if I can… if there is any way for me to make it easier for you to bear, I-,” she sniffs, to her disgust. “I just- I want to be what- what is best for you, and I know this isn’t- I know it’s all wrong, but-,”

“Aemma,” he says, and she stops. His eyes are still hard but not like precious stones, she thinks, like eggshells. Hard and fragile. “Aemma,” she has since removed her hand from his arm, but he reaches for her, and she takes his hand almost surprised by this sudden tender display. 

“I didn’t mean to make you feel,” he says, “that I have ever held it against you, your rights. I would never- any man that would ask you to give up the Eyrie for him is not- is not worthy of you in the least. That is where you belong, those are your people, and- and if I am concerned, it is that… that I feel I am not worthy of it, of you. You deserve someone who,” he swallows, “someone who… who will inherit something, anything, who did not spend their first three name days in a tower cell, who did not grow up in… in the shadow of a madman, who has not been… Aemma, nothing I ever do will erase the fact that I am my father’s son. I thought I- when I was younger, I thought I could… make people forget. That I could force them to see me for… for something else, for my own man. But I know that is not how it will be. Not now. Not ever.”

Aemma stares at him almost wildly for a second, then leans up on her tiptoes and brings her other hand up to his face. “I love you,” she says, in a small, restrained voice. “I love you and when I look at you I don’t see anyone else. All I see is you.” She smiles waveringly and says it again. 

“Maegor. You are Maegor, son of Daenora, and you- you are brave, and kind, and you always listen to your mother, even when you are angry, and you- you have a temper but it's good! It’s good, because you- you get angry over things we all ought to be angry at. You are angry when men beat their horses or their children and you are angry when lords mistreat their people and you are angry when outlaws prey on travelers and when septons take money from the poor and give nothing in return.”

“And- and even if you were not a knight, I would love you, and if you had not a penny to your name, I would love you, and you are what I want. And I do. Want you. To be my husband and- and my dearest friend and to- to be my sword and do justice in my name and to- to be a father with me and to… to raise our children just like you. And I know it sounds silly, and- and girlish, and I know you think I am being naive but I am telling you the truth, so don’t say I’m lying out of pity, don’t you dare!”

He stands there for a moment, his hot face against her hand, then abruptly pulls her to him. Aemma makes a muffled sound of surprise, then angrily waves in the direction of the guards, because they have never in fact, embraced before and she will not have this interrupted for the sake of her honor, for the love of the gods they are both clothed and his hands are on her shoulders, there are more scandalous hugs exchanged between septas at prayer. He lets go, blinking hard. “Don’t cry,” she says, then laughs with a watery edge. “Oh, don’t-,”

“I will earn my own lands,” he says. “Someday, and I- I will try my best to never disappoint you, as your lord consort.”

“I’m not marrying the lands, I’m marrying you,” she says, “You think I could- could ever be happy with anyone else? Maegor, you see how picky I am with my gowns and my shoes! How could I be any less selective in a man? If I did not want you or feel you deserved me, I would have run you off years ago. Or let you trip and fall off the Sky Trail,” she wipes at her own eyes, giggling nervously and avoiding his gaze.

“Stop it,” he says. “Please look at me,” and when she does, his thumb brushes across her cheek. She giggles again, out of shock. “It’s not- I know I am not… my words never sound right,” he says, “once I’ve said them, and I always… I always make a mess of it, and that’s why… sometimes, around you, I… I don’t say anything, not because I don’t want to, but because I- I would hate to ruin it between us.”

“You could never,” she catches his thumb in her fist, and squeezes, then pushes his hand almost playfully back at him. “You could never ruin it. If anyone will ruin it, it will be me, when I say something without thinking-,”

“I love you,” he blurts out.

Aemma closes her mouth, half-turns, then looks back at him, suddenly paralyzed. “Truly?”

“Yes,” he says. “I love you. Truly. So if you will have me for your knight and your husband, then-,”

She pounces on him, and then one of her guards finally calls out, “My lady, really!” and she reluctantly releases her betrothed, who loves her.

“I love you too,” she says, almost reproachfully. “A pox on you for not telling me sooner! We could have skipped the hunt and gone boating instead.”

“You thought I would love you more for going on a hunt with me?” he sounds almost amused.

“Better safe than sorry!”

“You think that would make or break it, Aemma, truly? A hunt? Your riding ability? What else, what cloak you wore?”

“Now you are being willfully obtuse!” But she is laughing a little. She yanks down her cloth of silver cloak and tosses it at him. “Lay this down on the ground.”

“Why?” he is grinning a little, as if they’d both narrowly avoided death and were now giggly and incoherent. 

“Because I want to look at the sky,” she says. “And you can lay next to it, you’re already in hunting leathers, and Dirk will guard your chastity-,”

“Aemma, leave the man be.”

“Very well.” She lies down, adjusting her plaited blonde hair so it falls across her chest, crossing one boot over the other. After a moment’s hesitation, he joins her. Through the patches of green leaves, the sky is blue and clear, full of birdsong and the odd wandering cloud, fluffy and white.

“We’ll be trampled if they come galloping back here,” he says, “you know.”

“You’ll shield me,” she yawns. “My good Ser. Who kept his shoes.”

He reaches over and tugs on her plait, softly.

250 AC - THE RED KEEP

It is not so surprising that she wakes first; she has always been an early riser. He, on the other hand, she has never had the chance to see abed before- unless you count last night, of course, and Aemma doesn’t really think that counts, for they weren’t so much as… abed, as a-top it, and then- Anyway, she has never seen him sleep before. He was still awake when she nodded off last night, one leg thrown over his, her right arm slung across his chest, her face buried in the back of his neck so his hair tickled her eyebrows.

Now she props herself up on one arm, examines him in smug delight, his arms and chest and the sheets bundled across his waist and then haphazardly drawn up around hers, for they are nowhere near the same height lying beside each other in bed, either. Her husband. This is much better than any other gifts one might customarily exchange for the new year. He is much better. He smiles in his sleep; she wonders if his mother knows that and decides she must. She and Daenora will chuckle over it all the way up the mountains. They mustn’t tell him, it will be funnier to watch him try to figure out what they are so amused by.

She glances around the bedchamber critically. She’s never been in here before, it is just some guest suite in Maegor’s Holdfast- and that is very funny too, now, her and Maegor abed in Maegor’s Holdfast- and while lavishly decorated, she feels nothing when she glances at the rich tapestries. She has made much better ones for their bedchamber in the Eyrie, and from their balcony they will be able to see Alyssa’s Tears come crashing down the face of the mountain like a rippling sheet. They won’t be woken by the cries of the cooks in the kitchen below, either, they’ll be too high up. And it is, unfortunately abominably hot in high summer in the Red Keep. It was built to conserve heat in the long winters, not to ward it off in the summers, especially the Holdfast.

“What are you doing?” he mutters sleepily. His eyes are still crusted shut. 

She pretends not to hear him, sitting up and stretching with an exaggerated yawn. His hand finds her hip. “Aemma. What are you doing. Wife.”

“Oh, so you do remember last night?” she inquires archly, turning to look down her nose at him, a smile playing on her lips. “I recall you had a little more wine than usual, because you consented to dance with Rhea, of all people, and when you were thirteen you swore you’d never dance with her again because she kept teasing you.”

He grunts, then says, “Funny. I remember you convinced the musicians to play My Featherbed over and over again, then grabbing me by the hand and cackling like a madwoman while you led me out the back exit.”

“You wound me, husband,” she chirps. “There was no convincing. My father paid them off to play it thrice. Everyone was too drunk to notice.”

“But not you.”

“Nor you!” She reclines back into his embrace, nestling her unbound hair against his shoulder. “You just had enough to call me beautiful four times in a row before I’d even gotten more than my slippers off. I counted.”

“That wasn’t the wine,” he says, and kisses her neck. She shivers happily, and rolls over to prop her chin on his chest.

“Good.”

There’s a soft knocking on the door. 

Aemma snorts and Maegor shushes her, looking almost worried they’re about to be barged in on.

“We’re occupied!” Aemma calls after a moment, and he tries to muffle her mouth with his hand, only for her to wriggle away, batting at his hands ineffectively and snickering. 

“It’s near noon,” comes Daenora’s voice, “and if you do not mind, I should like to reach Rosby by nightfall!” They are going to travel up the coast, spend a week in Duskendale, then a ship to Dragonstone for another week’s stay with Jaehaerys and Shaera, so they can explore the caves and walk the beaches, which are not so dreadfully foggy in high summer, and Daenora will enjoy the library and Aemma will examine the roses in Rhaenys’ garden with Shaera and exchange advice about growing plants in mountainous conditions. 

Then they will take another ship to Claw Isle for Rhea’s wedding, then land in Gulltown a fortnight later, where Alys and Elys will meet them, for Alys is about to enter her confinement with her first child and will not be able to go anywhere after that. They’ll stay at Ironoaks with them and Anya and the rest of the Waynwoods until the babe is born, and then journey on to the Eyrie so Aemma can shower Baby Jeyne will gifts and attention, and Father with a thousand petty grievances and questions about taxes and charters and how Septa Ellyn absolutely must stay on as Jeyne’s governess, Aemma will pay her wages herself until Jeyne is old enough to take lessons, and in the meantime she is commissioning a text on the life of Jeyne Arryn, Maiden of the Vale, which will be illuminated by the motherhouse in Gulltown.

And Daenora has expressed interest in a visit to Witch Isle, for Aemma is sure Anya’s betrothed’s long since widowed father caught her interest at Alys’ wedding two years past. But she can’t tell Maegor just yet so he’ll be in a state over it, so instead she assures him that no, truly, she agrees, with the curtains drawn it was impossible to tell how late it was- no, they will never have this problem at the Eyrie, there is no hiding from the sunlight there! Aemma slips out of bed and pulls on her dressing gown, pushing open the curtains, then leans against them to regard him with a sly little smile.

“How quickly can you dress?” she asks. “Your things are already packed up, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” he scoffs. “Are yours?”

She lays a hand on her heart. “Maegor. I have carefully inventoried every single article of clothing and jewelry. I have made a list of every book, every fabric, dragon egg-,”

“Then we have another hour,” he says. “Come back to bed.”

“Come back to bed, what?” she hedges, turning an ear towards him. She’s smiling with all her teeth. Yesterday he told her he liked her smile best when she did not hide them, that it made her eyes seem all the bluer. She made him promise to never grow a beard. He’s reluctantly agreed, for now, but swears he will shave his head if his hair starts to thin in a few years, as Duncan’s is. 

“Come back to bed, my good lady,” he says, lazily.

She sniffs.

“My good Lady Arryn.”

Another sniff.

“My Aemma,” he says, and she shrugs off the robe as easily as she’d put it on, and clambers back next to him, the summer heat be damned. Daenora knocks again, far fainter, then can be heard to audibly sigh and walk away, calling for Ronnel.

“Gods, what if they break down the door?” Aemma whispers in his ear.

“Then it’s a good thing we won’t be using this room again,” he murmurs back, “though if you wanted to take the bed, I would not mind-,”

The bells begin to chime and toll, marking the hour. Aemma doesn’t hear what he says after that, they are so loud, nor does she care. She doesn’t need words, the look in his eyes is enough, and the feeling of his lips on hers. After all, they are hardly short on time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. I know this was incredibly cheesy and contrived and probably wrapped itself up far too neatly but I am pretty pleased with the overall arc of the story. I wanted to write a (shorter than my average fics) romantic comedy in a medieval setting and I feel like I accomplished that. I hope Aemma and Maegor seemed in character even as they matured and changed. Ultimately there was no actual 'struggle' for them to overcome beyond some awkward dances, nasty gossip, a tourney melee, one wildling attack and some communication issues, which is probably typical of an Austen-inspired plot.
> 
> 2\. I had to come up with some reason as to why Aemma and Maegor got delayed in having their much needed chat so his knighthood and problems in the Westerlands interfered. A year after the end of this fic an actual full scale rebellion will break out, which Maegor will go off to fight in (don't worry he will survive). Nine years after the end of this fic Summerhall will happen. Unfortunately Aemma and Maegor cannot attend because she will be pregnant at the time. So sad. You get the gist of it.
> 
> 3\. Official riding habits with the split skirts and matching jacket for women were not a thing in the medieval period as far as I'm aware but there is historical evidence through art of women riding astride, even in full formal dress. I sacrificed accuracy for the aesthetic, what can I say. 
> 
> 4\. I was planning on writing their actual wedding but then I decided I didn't want to as this fic already included three (3!) weddings, so I went for the morning after instead. Which was a chance to write something cute since most of the time when people get married in my fics they don't actually love each other at that point. So this was a nice change of pace. They're off to a very long honeymoon and Daenora is going to kick back, relax, and drink margaritas on the beach while Aemma and Maegor burn his egg and go swimming or something. 
> 
> 5\. If you have any questions about what happens after the end of this fic I would direct you to my tumblr because I've discussed it a lot there under the tag #chime. Aemma and Maegor end up having four kids named Jon (called Little Jon to distinguish him from his grandfather), Alyssa, and twins Donnel and Daella. They are a very happy family unit and the Eyrie becomes a very loud and chaotic (in a good way) keep.
> 
> 6\. My next one shot will be out later this month and it will actually be a one shot, not a 'surprise' multi-chapter fic. It is pretty depressing compared to this one, but I'm looking forward to checking it off my list. 
> 
> 7\. You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/).


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